Are you my BEEzzie? How friendly to non-target insects are some fungal based biopesticides: A social bees species case

Hypocrealean entomopathogenic fungi, like Metarhizium spp. Beauveria spp. and Cordyceps (Isaria) spp., are widely used for biological control against pest insects. The fungi hierto used however have a wide host range and with that, a risk of targeting beneficial insects like pollinators, being bees the most important group of primary crop pollinators. In many crops, managed honey and bumblebees are used augmentative to ensure proper pollination, and in tropical regions, the stingless bees fulfill the increased demand for food security. When these fungi-based products are sprayed onto crops, foraging bees can be directly exposed to the fungal spores by different routes and even taking these inside the hive with the food resource. However, what happens with these foragers bee workers is still unknown, since not many studies have yet explored it. Are these friendly fungal based biopesticides really non-harmful for the bees? To investigate it, this project evaluated the mortality of four of the most known social bee species, two stinglees bees, S.captotrigona depilis and Tetragonisca angustula, the honey bee Apis mellifera and the bumble bee Bombus terrestris after the application of three entompathogenic fungi, Beauveria bassiana PL63, Metarhizium anisopliae E9 and Cordyceps (Isaria) fumosorosae 1296 under two methods of inoculation, Topic Application and Oral Infection. It is possible to verify differences of mortality and fungus outgrow between the fungi and the method of inoculation for each bee species.