Journal Article

A pan-European epidemiological study reveals honey bee colony survival depends on beekeeper education and disease control

Laurent, Marion, Saussac, Mathilde, Bougeard, Stéphanie, Ribière-Chabert, Magali, Chauzat, Marie-Pierre, Hendrikx, Pascal, Budge, Giles E., Jacques, Antoine

2017

Overview

Reports of honey bee population decline has spurred many national efforts to understand the extent of the problem and to identify causative or associated factors. However, our collective understanding of the factors has been hampered by a lack of joined up trans-national effort. Moreover, the impacts of beekeeper knowledge and beekeeping management practices have often been overlooked, despite honey bees being a managed pollinator. Here, we established a standardised active monitoring network for 5 798 apiaries over two consecutive years to quantify honey bee colony mortality across 17 European countries. Our data demonstrate that overwinter losses ranged between 2% and 32%, and that high summer losses were likely to follow high winter losses. Multivariate Poisson regression models revealed that hobbyist beekeepers with small apiaries and little experience in beekeeping had double the winter mortality rate when compared to professional beekeepers. Furthermore, honey bees kept by professional beekeepers never showed signs of disease, unlike apiaries from hobbyist beekeepers that had symptoms of bacterial infection and heavy Varroa infestation. Our data highlight beekeeper background and apicultural practices as major drivers of honey bee colony losses. The benefits of conducting trans-national monitoring schemes and improving beekeeper training are discussed.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Analysis / Animal biology / Animals / Apiculture / Apis mellifera / Bacteria / Bacterial diseases / Bacterial infections / Beekeeping / Beekeeping - education / Beekeeping - methods / Bees / Bees - microbiology / Bees - parasitology / Bees - physiology / Biology and Life Sciences / Cluster Analysis / Colonies / Disease control / Earth Sciences / Epidemiology / Europe - epidemiology / European honeybee / Health aspects / Honey / Infestation / Laboratories / Life Sciences / Medical research / Medicine and Health Sciences / Monitoring / Mortality / Parasitic Diseases, Animal / Parasitic Diseases, Animal - epidemiology / Parasitic Diseases, Animal - mortality / Parasitic Diseases, Animal - parasitology / Parasitic Diseases, Animal - prevention & control / People and Places / Physiological aspects / Plant reproduction / Poisson density functions / Poisson Distribution / Pollinators / Population decline / Regression analysis / Regression models / Risk Factors / Seasons / Statistical analysis / Studies / Survival / Varroa / Varroidae / Varroidae - physiology / Veterinary medicine and animal Health / Winter / Zoologi / Zoology