Long-term field-realistic exposure to a next-generation pesticide, flupyradifurone, impairs honey bee behaviour and survival

The assessment of pesticide risks to insect pollinators have typically focused on short-term, lethal impacts. The environmental ramifications of many of the world’s most commonly employed pesticides, such as those exhibiting systemic properties that can result in long-lasting exposure to insects, may thus be severely underestimated. Here, seven laboratories from Europe and North America performed a standardised experiment (a ring-test) to study the long-term lethal and sublethal impacts of the relatively recently approved ‘bee safe’ butenolide pesticide flupyradifurone (FPF, active ingredient in Sivanto ® ) on honey bees. The emerging contaminant, FPF, impaired bee survival and behaviour at field-realistic doses (down to 11 ng/bee/day, corresponding to 400 µg/kg) that were up to 101-fold lower than those reported by risk assessments (1110 ng/bee/day), despite an absence of time-reinforced toxicity. Our findings raise concerns about the chronic impact of pesticides on pollinators at a global scale and support a novel methodology for a refined risk assessment. Tosi and colleagues perform a large, multinational experiment on honey bees, encompassing multiple subspecies, to assess the short- and long-term effects of a next-generation pesticide, flupyradifurone, on this key pollinator species. Their findings indicate that this “bee safe” pesticide impairs survival and behaviour at real-world exposure levels.