Insecticide Resistence of Bumblebee Species

Bumblebees are important pollinators of many crops and wild flowers and there are both conservation and economic reasons for taking action to assess the impact of pesticides on bumblebees. Pesticide risk assessments for honeybees are based on hazard ratios which rely on application rates and toxicity data and are unlikely to be appropriate for bumblebees. Bumblebees are active at different times and on different crop species and are, therefore, likely to have different exposure profiles. Unlike honeybees, deaths of bumblebees due to pesticides are unlikely to be reported, since the bees are not kept domestically and will die in small numbers. During the last decades side-effects of insecticides on bees have gained great attention due to their value as pollinators. In Europe insecticides are tested following the EPPO (European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization) guidelines to exclude any harm to honeybees Apis mellifera. Unfortunately there has been a decline in the abundance of bumblebees (Bombus sp., Apidae) in many countries, and it is possible that this is due in part to the use of certain pesticides.