On Wednesday 31 March, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a scientific report describing a method for setting targets for the protection of honey bees from the effects of pesticides according to background variability in colony size.
This report on the analysis of background variability in colony size is in response to a request from the European Commission.
As the risk managers, the Commission and Member States considered this option (Option 2) to be the best one in the context of the revision of EFSA’s 2013 guidance document on the risk assessment of pesticides to bees.
It is based on a percentage of natural variability in bee colonies and a mathematical model developed by Syngenta called the Beehave model. This is used to define the acceptable level of increase in bee mortality due to pesticides, which could be set at 20% (see EUROPE 12572/14).
EFSA therefore used Beehave to assess the background variability of colony size in 19 EU environmental scenarios covering a range of geographical, climatic and beekeeping conditions. A comparison was made between the results of the model and measurements made on control groups in experimental field studies.
Read the report: https://bit.ly/3sIVubg (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)