Network for Monitoring Honey Bee Mortality and Colony Losses in Italy as a Part of the APENET Research Project

Honey bee and colony mortality have been reported for several years in many countries as well as in Italy. In the last years this phenomenon has become increasingly serious, and several hypotheses have been proposed to explain honey bee and colony losses. These hypotheses relate to pests and diseases, pesticides, apicultural practices, climate change, electromagnetic fields, GMO crops, etc. Honey bee colony losses are being surveyed in several European countries, but these surveys are not sufficiently structured. Based on beekeepers’ reports, honey bee losses in Italy follow a clear seasonal pattern: a) during spring and summer colonies lose many foragers due to agrochemicals (bee losses); b) from late summer to winter, the impact of pests (including Varroa) and pathogens becomes more important (colony losses). To assess the extent and investigate the possible causes of honey bee and colony losses in Italy a national monitoring network needs to be established. Target apiaries will be distributed in selected sites (modules), ideally one per region, to cover the national territory. Each module, composed of five apiaries with ten non-migratory colonies each, will be chosen based on environmental characteristics with a distance to the center of the module of about 50 km. Colonies will be visually inspected four times a year (right after winter, spring, summer and just before winter). In each inspection several parameters of each colony will be considered— health and nutritional condition, number of bees and brood, and queen’s age. The person in charge of each module will input the information obtained in a real-time database available on the Internet. In addition, dead and live bees, as well as several beehive matrices (brood, pollen, wax) will be collected during each inspection for chemical, pollen and disease analyses. The information collected through this honey-bee monitoring network will provide a broad database from which to explore patterns of disease, toxic exposure and management practices that may be linked to the occurrence of honey bee and colony losses. APENET aims at providing an accurate assessment of the overall health condition of honey bees at the national level.