Abstract
An attempt was made to develop an effective bioassay method for toxicological studies for the stingless bee, Tetragonula travancorica Shanas and Faseeh. The developed bioassay employed stingless bees sampled from the forest area with no history of past insecticide exposure and vegetable ecosystem having frequent insecticide exposure with insecticides viz., chlorantraniliprole and thiamethoxam. A residual film bioassay using pre-treated conical flasks and transferring the bees to the treated flasks in the field itself was easy and less time-consuming. Stingless bees survived for 12 hours in the control flasks with the bioassay method III.Whereas mortality was significantly low in bioassay method I and II within 3h and 6h, respectively.Chlorantraniliprole was less toxic (LC50 – 10.98 ppm to 17.30 ppm) to stingless bees than thiamethoxam(LC50 – 0.30 ppm to 0.78 ppm). Thiamethoxam was highly toxic (LC50 – 0.30 ppm to 0.37 ppm) to beesfrom the forest ecosystem, whereas bees in the vegetable ecosystem were more tolerant (LC50 – 0.67 ppmto 0.78 ppm). The findings may help carry out ecotoxicology and risk assessment studies in stingless bees,a key pollinator of many crops, more rapidly and easily.
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