Honey bee colony losses

Abstract

Apiculture has been in decline in both Europe and the USA over recent decades, as is shown by the decreasing numbers of managed honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies (Ellis et al., 2010; Potts et al., 2010).It therefore is crucial to make beekeeping a more attractive hobby and a less laborious profession, in order to encourage local apiculture and pollination.Apart from socio-economic factors, which can only be addressed by politicians, sudden losses of honey bee colonies have occurred, and have received considerable public attention.Indeed, in the last few years, the world's press has been full of eye catching but often uninformative headlines proclaiming the dramatic demise of the honey bee, a world pollinator crisis and the spectre of mass human starvation."Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD) in the USA has attracted great attention, and scientists there and in Europe are working hard to provide explanations for these extensive colony losses.Colony losses have also occurred elsewhere (Figs 1 and 2), but examination of the historical record shows that such extensive losses are not unusual (vanEngelsdorp and Meixner, 2009).Almost exactly a century ago, in 1906, beekeepers on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England, noticed that many of their honey bee colonies were dying, with numerous bees crawling from the hive, unable to fly.Despite some sceptical beekeepers suggesting that this was "paralysis", a condition which had long been known, the colony losses were widely reported in the media, and beekeepers became convinced that the cause was a novel USA: ~30% losses Europe:1.8%