Pollination services are vital for agriculture, food security and biodiversity. Although manyinsect species provide pollination services, honeybees are thought to be the major provider of thisservice to agriculture. However, the importance of wild bees in this respect should not be overlooked.Whilst regulatory risk assessment processes have, for a long time, included that for pollinators, usinghoneybees (Apis mellifera) as a protective surrogate, there are concerns that this approach may not besufficiently adequate particularly because of global declines in pollinating insects. Consequently, riskassessments are now being expanded to include wild bee species such as bumblebees (Bombus spp.)and solitary bees (Osmia spp.). However, toxicity data for these species is scarce and are absent fromthe main pesticide reference resources. The aim of the study described here was to collate datarelating to the acute toxicity of pesticides to wild bee species (both topical and dietary exposure) frompublished regulatory documents and peer reviewed literature, and to incorporate this into one of themain online resources for pesticide risk assessment data: The Pesticide Properties Database, thusensuring that the data is maintained and continuously kept up to date. The outcome of this study is adataset collated from 316 regulatory and peer reviewed articles that contains 178 records covering 120different pesticides and their variants which includes 142 records for bumblebees and a further 115records for other wild bee species.
