EFSA launches project to protect honeybees

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has launched a "major" project to address the threat to honeybees colonies.  The agency says bees are "under attack from many directions" with parasites, infectious agents, agro-chemicals and environmental changes just some of the stressors that are known to damage honeybee colonies. 

EFSA says the ultimate goal of the project is to establish a framework for the risk assessment of multiple stressors in honeybee colonies.  The multiannual project involves scientists from a range of relevant fields, such as bee specialists, as well as experts in animal health, plant health, pesticides, data and modelling.

EFSA says it will work closely with the European Commission, member states, other EU agencies and research bodies.  Simon More, a veterinarian from University College Dublin who is chairing EFSA’s Multiple Stressors in Bees (MUST-B) working group, said: “We have set ourselves an ambitious but very exciting task. This kind of integrated approach to assessing risks to bees is absolutely necessary if we are to understand how these different stressors combine to kill or weaken honeybee colonies.”

He added: “We basically need two things to build our framework: reliable, harmonized monitoring data – on the presence in hives of infectious agents, such as bacteria and viruses, or pesticide residues, for example – and a computerised simulation model that can process the data and both explain and predict the effects."

He added, "It sounds straightforward, but this is a huge scientific challenge.”  EFSA’s pesticide experts have already recommended an existing model which they believe could be adapted to the needs of the project. The BEEHAVE model simulates hive population dynamics by considering environmental factors such as weather conditions, availability of food (pollen and nectar), infectious agents such as the Varroa mite and two associated viruses, and other factors that may affect colony development.

Members of EFSA’s "Panel on Plant Protection Products and their Residues" (PPR) said that the model in its current form is not suitable for use in regulatory risk assessments, but in the future it could be adapted to predict the effects of pesticides and other stressors on honeybee colonies.  They recommend the inclusion in the model of a pesticide module, additional infectious agents such as Nosema and Foulbrood, and an element that can measure interactions between these infectious agents, parasites, climatic conditions and landscape.

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