The ICP-BR (International Commission for Plant Bee Relationships) Bee
Protection Group held its first meeting in Wageningen in 1980 and over
the subsequent 25 years has become the established expert forum for
addressing the risk of pesticides to bees. In 2005 the ninth meeting
was held at the Central Science Laboratory, York, and the papers in
this issue are the output from this meeting.

Concerns over colony losses and reduced honey yields have been raised
in France over a number of years and a large-scale field survey has
been conducted to identify possible causes. To assess the role of
pesticides, samples of bees, pollen, honey and wax have been collected
from apiaries distributed over five departments and the results for
the pesticide analysis of the wax samples are reported in this issue.
Any contamination found within the hives needs to be considered
alongside other relevant factors, for example food availability,
environmental pollution, disease and other factors. Large honey bee
losses were also reported in Germany over the winter of 2002/2003 and
a symposium has been held by the Federal Office of Consumer Protection
and Food Safety (BVL) in 2004.

In many cases pesticides (notably imidacloprid) had been blamed for
these losses, but no evidence for this was identified. A number of
potentially relevant factors have been identified, however, including
climate, forage availability, bee health, timing of Varroa control and
pesticides (particularly with respect to applications in maize and
sunflowers). It is recognised that long-term monitoring is needed to
clarify and confirm the causes and that a range of factors need to be
assessed from a large number of bee colonies located at apiaries
situated in a range of landscapes, preferably across the EU. This must
involve cooperation between beekeepers, farmers, bee institutes and
industry.

Working groups will present their findings for consideration by the
next (10th) symposium of the ICP-BR Bee Protection Group to be held in
2008 and their recommendations are expected to be incorporated into EU
regulatory risk assessments aimed at minimising the impact of
pesticides on bees.

In Focus: Pesticides and honeybees – the work of the ICP-BR Bee Protection Group
Pest Management Science. 63:1047–1050 (2007)

* * *

The question of bee mortality and these pesticides was discussed at a
recent meeting and at the 10th International Symposium of the
International Commission for Plant-Bee Relationships on Hazards of
Pesticides to Bees on 8-10 October 2008. At present there is no
evidence that the approvals need to be amended on the crops and at the
rates used in the UK, but we will continue to keep the situation under
review.

In addition, the Government's wildlife incident investigation scheme
reviewed a number of bee deaths reported to it this summer. No
neonicotinoid pesticides were detected during analysis of the bee
bodies.

At this point in time there is no evidence to suggest that reported
losses of UK honeybee colonies are related to pesticide applications
(see response to PQ 5369 07/08). Consequently the Secretary of State
has not asked either PSD or the ACP to investigate these reports.

Reports of colony losses are being investigated as a high priority,
and there may be a number of factors involved. Additional funds of
£120,000 (£90,000 from DEFRA and £30,000 from the Welsh Assembly
Government) have been allocated to the National Bee Unit to expand the
investigations they started last year into significant bee losses and
to meet the demand for increased inspections of bee imports.

Huw Irranca-Davies
House of Commons Hansard, Daily Debates
29 Oct 2008

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