Review of the work and dissemination of findings of the COLOSS monitoring group in 2016

The network of countries participating in monitoring of colony losses remains strong. In 2016, 29 countries sent data from their monitoring survey to the international data co-ordinator for inclusion in the data analysis. Turkey and Belgium both contributed data once more after a few years of absence, and Wales provided data from a new survey. Several avenues were pursued in 2016 for publishing the results of the COLOSS annual colony winter loss survey. A press release with preliminary results for winter 2015-16 was issued in late July 2016, as has been done for several years. This attracts considerable international attention through the media and the internet. A new initiative was started in 2016, to establish an annual series of jointly authored short papers to be submitted in late summer/early autumn. These would present winter loss rates from countries submitting data returns in the requested form to the data co-ordinator by the specified deadline for that year’s survey. The first paper, entitled “Preliminary analysis of loss rates of honey bee colonies during winter 2015/16 from the COLOSS survey”, appeared in the Journal of Apicultural Research online in December 2016 and has already been widely read. In future a press release is likely to follow rather than precede this annual paper. Discussion at and prior to the COLOSS conference in September 2016 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, proposed use of data collected on varroa treatment as part of the monitoring questionnaire, not as a potential explanatory factor in winter losses but in a descriptive analysis comparing beekeeper practice in participating countries. This analysis is underway at the time of writing. The results will also be of interest to the COLOSS varroa group. Two further papers are still in preparation. One is a modelling-based paper on risk of winter loss, covering a period of 5 years and incorporating both varroa treatment factors and environmental variables, and another is a descriptive paper presenting loss rates over time and space, for the study of patterns of losses. A ResearchGate collaborative project was set up in late December 2016 by Robert Brodschneider, entitled “COLOSS monitoring of honey bee colony losses”, as a means of enhancing visibility of the work of the monitoring group, and also for attracting interest from potential national co-ordinators in countries not yet represented in the group. In just over a month, this has already gained more than 50 followers

Honeybee Colony Thermoregulation – Regulatory Mechanisms and Contribution of Individuals in Dependence on Age, Location and Thermal Stress

Honeybee larvae and pupae are extremely stenothermic, i.e. they strongly depend on accurate regulation of brood nest temperature for proper development (33–36°C). Here we study the mechanisms of social thermoregulation of honeybee colonies under changing environmental temperatures concerning the contribution of individuals to colony temperature homeostasis. Beside migration activity within the nest, the main active process is “endothermy on demand” of adults. An increase of cold stress (cooling of the colony) increases the intensity of heat production with thoracic flight muscles and the number of endothermic individuals, especially in the brood nest. As endothermy means hard work for bees, this eases much burden of nestmates which can stay ectothermic. Concerning the active reaction to cold stress by endothermy, age polyethism is reduced to only two physiologically predetermined task divisions, 0 to ∼2 days and older. Endothermic heat production is the job of bees older than about two days. They are all similarly engaged in active heat production both in intensity and frequency. Their active heat production has an important reinforcement effect on passive heat production of the many ectothermic bees and of the brood. Ectothermy is most frequent in young bees (<∼2 days) both outside and inside of brood nest cells. We suggest young bees visit warm brood nest cells not only to clean them but also to speed up flight muscle development for proper endothermy and foraging later in their life. Young bees inside brood nest cells mostly receive heat from the surrounding cell wall during cold stress, whereas older bees predominantly transfer heat from the thorax to the cell wall. Endothermic bees regulate brood comb temperature more accurately than local air temperature. They apply the heat as close to the brood as possible: workers heating cells from within have a higher probability of endothermy than those on the comb surface. The findings show that thermal homeostasis of honeybee colonies is achieved by a combination of active and passive processes. The differential individual endothermic and behavioral reactions sum up to an integrated action of the honeybee colony as a superorganism

Landscape thought pollinator friendly – how agricultural areas become livable environments for bees (Apiformes)

Bienen sind wichtige Bestäuber sowohl für Wild- als auch Kulturpflanzen, aber gängige Landwirtschaftsmethoden machen ihnen das Überleben schwer. Weltweit gibt es einen Rückgang der Bienendiversität. Sowohl Honigbienen als auch Wildbienen werden von anthropogenen Einflüssen und landwirtschaftlichen Anbaumethoden beeinflusst. In Österreich, Deutschland und der Schweiz werden zwischen 32 und 47 Prozent der Landesfläche landwirtschaftlich genutzt. Die Intensivierung der Landwirtschaft und der damit einhergehende Verlust von Randstrukturen sowie der Einsatz von Pestiziden führt zu einem Verlust von Nahrungspflanzen und Nistplatzhabitaten für Bienen. In diesem Artikel beschreiben wir Möglichkeiten einer kompetitiven Landwirtschaft ohne große Ertragsverluste, wie sie sich unsere Bienen wünschen würden. Wir diskutieren bienenfreundliche alternative Wirtschaftsmethoden wie Permakultur oder Agroforst, behandeln die Schaffung von Blühflächen, natürlichen Nistplätzen und Reduktion des Pestizideinsatzes. Fauna und Flora schonende Grünlandwirtschaft in Bezug auf Mähhäufigkeit, Mähtechnik und Düngung von Grünflächen werden ebenfalls besprochen. Dieser Artikel bietet Basiswissen für die Ausbildung von Landwirten für eine nachhaltige und bienenfreundliche Landwirtschaft sowie Vorschläge für ein Monitoring der Auswirkungen.One of the main reasons of a worldwide decline in bee diversity is the intensification of agriculture. In Austria, Germany and Switzerland, between 32 and 47 percent of the state area is used for agriculture. The decline of field edge structures, the use of pesticides and an associated loss of forage and habitats affect both honey bees and wild bees negatively. This work summarizes agricultural measures to maintain or restore bee habitats, for example by creating flowering areas, natural nesting sites or alternative management methods such as permaculture or agroforestry. Usage of pesticides and associated consequences for bees are discussed, as well as approaches to reduce insect loss due to multiple mowing in intensively managed grassland areas. Implementation of bee-friendly, yet economically feasible management methods is only accomplishable in reciprocal dialogue between science and the designers of agricultural landscapes – the farmers. Communicating ecological relationships between the preservation of bees, pollination services and environmental sustainability via continuing education and training of next generation farmers is crucial to increase sustainability in agricultural practices. This article aims at providing the basic knowledge for bee-friendly agriculture as well as suggestions for monitoring to assess the impact

How Citizen Scientists See their Own Role and Expertise: An Explorative Study of the Perspectives of Beekeepers in a Citizen Science Project

The mission and definition of citizen science are vividly debated. One of the crucial aspects contested is who has the agency to define it; another is how precise a definition can and should be and how much these definitions are reflective of the heterogeneity of practices and perspectives subsumed under the label citizen science. In this paper we draw attention to how citizens themselves actively construct their own roles within a project in relation to both their histories and the project’s scientists. Drawing on a set of in-depth interviews with participating Austrian beekeepers in the INSIGNIA project, we show how even within a small, relatively homogenous sample of participants, there is considerable diversity in how the citizen scientists see their roles. We explore how citizen scientists articulate a different set of relations towards science, their own practice as beekeepers, and their desired role in the project. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of our findings for academic reflection on citizen science as well as practical implementation for citizen science projects

Direct Economic Impact Assessment of Winter Honeybee Colony Losses in Three European Countries

Honeybees are of great importance because of their role in pollination as well as for hive products. The population of managed colonies fluctuates over time, and recent monitoring reports show different levels of colony losses in many regions and countries. The cause of this kind of loss is a combination of various factors, such as the parasitic mite Varroa destructor, viruses, pesticides, management practices, climate change, and other stress factors. Having in mind that the economic aspect of honeybee colony losses has not been estimated, a pioneer effort was made for developing a methodology that estimates the economic impact of honeybee colony losses. Winter loss data was based on 2993 answers of the COLOSS standard questionnaire survey of honeybee winter colony losses for 2016/2017. In addition, market and financial data were used for each country. In a comparative analysis, an assessment on the economic impact of colony losses in Austria, Czechia, and Macedonia was made. The estimation considered the value of the colonies and the potential production losses of the lost colonies and of surviving but weak colonies. The direct economic impact of winter honeybee colony losses in 2016/2017 in Austria was estimated to be about 32 Mio; in Czechia, 21 Mio; and in Macedonia, 3 Mio. Economic impact reflects the different value levels in the three countries, national colony populations, and the magnitude of colony losses. This study also suggests that economic losses are much higher than the subsidies, which underlines the economic importance of honeybees for the agricultural sector

How COLOSS monitoring and research on lost honey bee colonies can support colony survival

Formation of This Group Since the mid-2000s beekeepers began to report cases of widespread, elevated mortalities of honey bee colonies (Figure 1) in different parts of the world. Today, international scientific monitoring of honey bee colony losses is organised as one of three ‘Core Projects’ of the non-profit honey bee research association COLOSS (prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes). The topic of this Core Project, colony losses, is reflected in the acronym COLOSS, underlining its importance to the association! Since the very beginning of COLOSS as an EU COST-funded action in 2008, a working group has been dedicated to collect standardised data on honey bee colony losses. This group was termed “monitoring & diagnosis” and was first led and largely shaped by Romée van der Zee from the Netherlands. It is important also to note the involvement of other members who have been very active from the early days until today. These include Flemming Vejsnæs from the Danish Beekeepers Association, Victoria Soroker from Israel, Franco Mutinelli from Italy, and recently retired Preben Kristiansen from Sweden. No other international and long-lasting effort on honey bee colony health and mortality was established in Europe prior to this effort

Preservation methods of honey bee-collected pollen are not a source of bias in ITS2 metabarcoding

Pollen metabarcoding is emerging as a powerful tool for ecological research and offers unprecedented scale in citizen science projects for environmental monitoring via honey bees. Biases in metabarcoding can be introduced at any stage of sample processing and preservation is at the forefront of the pipeline. While in metabarcoding studies pollen has been preserved at − 20 °C (FRZ), this is not the best method for citizen scientists. Herein, we compared this method with ethanol (EtOH), silica gel (SG) and room temperature (RT) for preservation of pollen collected from hives in Austria and Denmark. After ~ 4 months of storage, DNAs were extracted with a food kit, and their quality and concentration measured. Most DNA extracts exhibited 260/280 absorbance ratios close to the optimal 1.8, with RT samples from Austria performing slightly worse than FRZ and SG samples (P < 0.027). Statistical differences were also detected for DNA concentration, with EtOH samples producing lower yields than RT and FRZ samples in both countries and SG in Austria (P < 0.042). Yet, qualitative and quantitative assessments of floral composition obtained using high-throughput sequencing with the ITS2 barcode gave non-significant effects of preservation methods on richness, relative abundance and Shannon diversity, in both countries. While freezing and ethanol are commonly employed for archiving tissue for molecular applications, desiccation is cheaper and easier to use regarding both storage and transportation. Since SG is less dependent on ambient humidity and less prone to contamination than RT, we recommend SG for preserving pollen for metabarcoding. SG is straightforward for laymen to use and hence robust for widespread application in citizen science studies.We are deeply indebted to Susana Lopes and Maria Magalhães, from CIBIO—Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources—InBIO Associate Laboratory, for their time devoted to library preparation and sequencing in the MiSeq. AQ acknowledges the PhD scholarship (DFA/BD/5155/2020) funded by FCT. This work was funded by the Health and Food Safety Directorate General, European Commission through the project INSIGNIA—Environmental monitoring of pesticide use through honeybees SANTE/E4/SI2.788418-SI2.788452- INSIGINIA-PP-1–1-2018. Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) provided financial support by national funds (FCT/MCTES) to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Honey bee collected pollen for botanical identification via its2 metabarcoding: a comparison of preservation methods for citizen science

DNA metabarcoding is emerging as a powerful method for botanical identification of bee-collected pollen, allowing analysis of hundreds of samples in a single high-throughput sequencing run, therefore offering unprecedented scale in citizen science projects. Biases in metabarcoding can be introduced at any stage of sample processing and preservation is the first step of the pipeline. Hence, it is important to test whether the pollen preservation method influences metabarcoding performance. While in metabarcoding studies pollen has typically been preserved at −20°C, this is not the best method to be applied by citizen scientists. Here, we compared the freezing method (FRZ) with ethanol (EtOH), silica gel (SG) and room temperature (RT) in 87 pollen samples collected from hives in Austria and Denmark.AQ acknowledges the PhD scholarship (DFA/BD/5155/2020) funded by FCT. This study was funded by INSIGNIA “Environmental monitoring of pesticides use through honey bees” (SANTE/E4/SI2.788418-SI2.788452).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Results of international standardised beekeeper surveys of colony losses for winter 2012-2013 : analysis of winter loss rates and mixed effects modelling of risk factors for winter loss.

This article presents results of an analysis of winter losses of honey bee colonies from 19 mainly European countries, most of which implemented the standardised 2013 COLOSS questionnaire. Generalised linear mixed effects models (GLMMs) were used to investigate the effects of several factors on the risk of colony loss, including different treatments for Varroa destructor, allowing for random effects of beekeeper and region. Both winter and summer treatments were considered, and the most common combinations of treatment and timing were used to define treatment factor levels. Overall and within country colony loss rates are presented. Significant factors in the model were found to be: percentage of young queens in the colonies before winter, extent of queen problems in summer, treatment of the varroa mite, and access by foraging honey bees to oilseed rape and maize. Spatial variation at the beekeeper level is shown across geographical regions using random effects from the fitted models, both before and after allowing for the effect of the significant terms in the model. This spatial variation is considerable

Managed honey bee colony losses in Canada, China, Europe, Israel and Turkey, for the winters of 2008-9 and 1009-10

In 2008 the COLOSS network was formed by honey bee experts from Europe and the USA. The primary objectives set by this scientific network were to explain and to prevent large scale losses of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies. In June 2008 COLOSS obtained four years support from the European Union from COST and was designated as COST Action FA0803 – COLOSS (Prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes). To enable the comparison of loss data between participating countries, a standardized COLOSS questionnaire was developed. Using this questionnaire information on honey bee losses has been collected over two years. Survey data presented in this study were gathered in 2009 from 12 countries and in 2010 from 24 countries. Mean honey bee losses in Europe varied widely, between 7-22% over the 2008-9 winter and between 7-30% over the 2009-10 winter. An important finding is that for all countries which participated in 2008-9, winter losses in 2009-10 were found to be substantially higher. In 2009-10, winter losses in South East Europe were at such a low level that the factors causing the losses in other parts of Europe were absent, or at a level which did not affect colony survival. The five provinces of China, which were included in 2009-10, showed very low mean (4%) A. mellifera winter losses. In six Canadian provinces, mean winter losses in 2010 varied between 16-25%, losses in Nova Scotia (40%) being exceptionally high. In most countries and in both monitoring years, hobbyist beekeepers (1-50 colonies) experienced higher losses than practitioners with intermediate beekeeping operations (51-500 colonies). This relationship between scale of beekeeping and extent of losses effect was also observed in 2009-10, but was less pronounced. In Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, 2008-9 mean winter losses for beekeepers who reported ‘disappeared’ colonies were significantly higher compared to mean winter losses of beekeepers who did not report ‘disappeared’ colonies. Mean 2008-9 winter losses for those beekeepers in the Netherlands who reported symptoms similar to “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD), namely: 1. no dead bees in or surrounding the hive while; 2. capped brood was present, were significantly higher than mean winter losses for those beekeepers who reported ‘disappeared’ colonies without the presence of capped brood in the empty hives. In the winter of 2009-10 in the majority of participating countries, beekeepers who reported ‘disappeared’ colonies experienced higher winter losses compared with beekeepers, who experienced winter losses but did not report ‘disappeared’ colonies