Using BEEHAVE to explore pesticide protection goals for European honeybee (Apis melifera L.) worker losses at different forage qualities.

Abstract

Losses of honeybee colonies are intensely debated and although honeybees suffer multiple stressors, the main focus has been on pesticides. As a result, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) revised the guidance for pesticide risk assessment for honeybees. The European Food Safety Authority reported a protection goal of negligible effect at 7% of colony size and then used the Khoury honeybee colony model to set trigger values for forager losses. However, the Khoury model is very simplistic and simulates colonies in an idealized state. In the present study, the authors demonstrate how a more realistic published honeybee model, BEEHAVE, with a few simple changes, can be used to explore pesticide risks. The results show that forage availability interacts with pesticide-induced worker losses, and colony resilience increases with forage quality. Adding alternative unexposed forage to the landscape also substantially mitigates the effects of pesticide exposure. The results indicate that EFSA's reported protection goal of 7% of colony size and triggers for daily worker losses are overly conservative. The authors conclude that forage availability is critical for colony resilience and that with adequate forage the colonies are resilient to even high levels of worker losses. However, the authors recommend setting protection goals using suboptimal forage conditions to ensure conservatism and for such suboptimal forage, a total of 20% reduction in colony size was safe. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:254-264. © 2016 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of SETAC.