In the US, the diagnosed causes of overwintering mortality were different according to the beekeeper operation type: backyard beekeepers generally identified “manageable” factors (e.g., starvation, weak colony in the fall), while commercial beekeepers suggested environmental factors including pesticides.
Indeed, the most important result of this study was a significantly higher survivorship of the local genotypes compared to the non-local ones. A first and recent Europe-wide experiment clearly indicated the presence of genotype-environment interactions originating from specific local adaptation of the honey bee populations. Pathogens were linked to poor honey bee health in the UK and in Germany, pathogens and pesticides in Italy, while this was not found to be the case in Africa.
#Buy colony survival drivers
National studies suggest different drivers of poor honey bee colony health depending on the geography. Honey bees are subject to many interacting pressures including pests, pathogens, pesticides and climate change-for a review see Vanbergen et al. Indeed in the US, it was shown that the quantity and quality of pollination services haved declined through time. Whilst the global number of managed colonies has risen by about 45% over the last 60 years, the seemingly unpredicable loss of honey bee colonies exacerbates the shortage of pollinators leading to concerns that pollination deficits may limit crop production. Recent decades have seen heightened concern about honey bee colony mortaility across the United States, Asia and Europe. Honey bees are highly effective pollinators with an annual global contribution to crop productivity of € 147 million. The benefits of conducting trans-national monitoring schemes and improving beekeeper training are discussed. Our data highlight beekeeper background and apicultural practices as major drivers of honey bee colony losses.
#Buy colony survival professional
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. 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. Our data demonstrate that overwinter losses ranged between 2% and 32%, and that high summer losses were likely to follow high winter losses. 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. Moreover, the impacts of beekeeper knowledge and beekeeping management practices have often been overlooked, despite honey bees being a managed pollinator. However, our collective understanding of the factors has been hampered by a lack of joined up trans-national effort. 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.
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