Chronic exposure to a field-realistic concentration of Closer® SC (24% sulfoxaflor) insecticide impacted the growth and foraging activity of honey bee colonies

Toxic temperatures: Bee behaviours exhibit divergent pesticide toxicity relationships with warming

“…For sulfoxaflor, application concentrations are typically higher in the field (relative to imidacloprid), and recent studies have found sulfoxaflor residues in nectar and pollen of a variety of treated crops >10 μg/L (Jiang et al, 2020) and >150 μg/L (Cheng et al, 2018; US EPA, 2016; Zhou et al, 2022) when applied close to the blooming period. Whilst bees in experiment 2 provisioned with sulfoxaflor sucrose solution consumed more on average than imidacloprid bees (and thus received a higher sulfoxaflor dosage) we still found little consistent effect of sulfoxaflor, despite other studies exposing bees to concentrations similar or under that used in our experiments 2 and 3 finding impacts on different behaviours (El‐Din et al, 2022; Linguadoca et al, 2021; Siviter et al, 2020; Siviter, Brown, et al, 2018; Siviter, Koricheva, et al, 2018; Taning et al, 2019). Interestingly, Boff et al (2021) found sulfoxaflor exposure at 50 ppb, but not 10 ppb, led to impaired flight and foraging in a solitary bee.…”

“…Whilst bees in experiment 2 provisioned with sulfoxaflor sucrose solution consumed more on average than imidacloprid bees (and thus received a higher sulfoxaflor dosage) we still found little consistent effect of sulfoxaflor, despite other studies exposing bees to concentrations similar or under that used in our experiments 2 and 3 finding impacts on different behaviours (El-Din et al, 2022;Linguadoca et al, 2021;Siviter et al, 2020;Siviter, Koricheva, et al, 2018;Taning et al, 2019).…”