Acute Contact Toxicity Test of Oxalic Acid on Honeybees in the Southwestern Zone of Uruguay

This work studies the acute contact toxicity of oxalic acid (OA) on a honeybee polyhybrid subspecies (Apis mellifera), which is the dominant biotype in southwestern zone of Uruguay (SWZU) and the country’s most important honey-producing region. We determined the mean lethal dose (LD50), as well as the no observed effect level (NOEL) and the lowest observed effect level (LOEL) values. We also estimated the total number of honeybees per hive in the test area. The aim was to assess the relationship between the maximum OA dose used in Uruguay (3.1 g OA per hive) and the toxicological parameters of honeybees from SWZU. The current dose of 3.1 g OA per hive corresponds to 132.8 μg OA per honeybee since determined NOEL is 400 μg OA per honeybee; our results indicate that the current dose could be increased to 9.3 g OA per hive. The results also highlight some differences between the LD50 value in SWZU honeybees (548.95 μg OA per honeybee) and some published LD50 values for other honeybee subspecies.