Refined parameters for bumblebee microcolony dietary exposure tests

SETAC NA 2023 -- In this study, we explore the procedures and parameters required to optimise a GLP laboratory microcolony feeding test to determine whether sugar syrup and pollen contaminated with doses of a test item could affect the food consumption, worker survival and size of the brood, as well as cause any delay of adult emergence in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. B. terrestris was selected owing to use as a wide-spread pollinator of flowering crops and as a surrogate for other bumblebee species.