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New OECD draft guideline on Honey Bee homing flight commented by ibacon

2nd July 2020

The new OECD draft Test Guideline on honeybee (Apis mellifera) homing flight test after single exposure to sublethal doses was issued for the first commenting round (deadline June 26th 2020).

The EFSA guidance document on risk assessment of plant protection products on bees points out a data gap for sublethal effect studies. This data gap could be addressed by the new draft guideline, assessing the homing flight of forager bees after an acute oral, single exposure to a test chemical under field conditions.

A new technology is implemented in this guideline: Bees are individually tagged with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips. Afterwards treated, untreated and toxic reference treated bees are released in a distance of approximately one kilometre from their colony. Homing success is recorded automatically at the entrance of the hive for 24 hours. Homing rate and homing time as additional endpoint are compared between the test groups.

Ibacon supports the development of the new test guideline with its contribution to the Expert Group on honeybee testing methods, by participating on ring tests and commenting of  the draft test guideline.

Please follow the link to get more information about the Honey Bee and Pollinator studies routinely conducted at ibacon.