Behavior of honey bees; a guideline to assess troubles in bee foraging activity under insect-proof tunnels

摘要

The usual guidelines for honey bee risk assessment have been validated for acute effects to honeybees following foliar applications of agro pharmaceuticals during flowering. However the use of coated seeds and soil treatments during the sowing operation are being suspected to induce chronic effects on the bee foraging activity during the time of flowering. These effects had not been investigated before the methodology described below was developed. This new method addresses chronic effects that canbe observed in fields where honeybees forage sunflowers grown from insecticide coated seeds. It does not deal with the acute effects of such chemicals but only aims at identifying any troubles that could be caused by residues remaining in the plant at the time of flowering.