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.

Over the last few years, many European and North American countries have reported a high rate of disorders (mortality, dwindling and disappearance) affecting honeybee colonies (Apis mellifera). Although beekeeping has become an increasingly professional activity in recent years, the beekeeping industry remains poorly documented in Europe. The European Union Reference Laboratory for Honeybee Health sent a detailed questionnaire to each Member State, in addition to Kosovo and Norway, to determine the demographics and state of their beekeeping industries. Based on data supplied by the National Reference Laboratory for honeybee diseases in each European country, a European database was created to describe the beekeeping industry including the number and types of beekeepers, operation size, industry production, and health (notifiable diseases, mortalities). The total number of beekeepers in Europe was estimated at 620 000. European honey production was evaluated at around 220 000 tons in 2010. The price of honey varied from 1.5 to 40 €/kg depending on the country and on the distribution network. The estimated colony winter mortality varied from 7 to 28% depending on the country and the origin of the data (institutional survey or beekeeping associations). This survey documents the high heterogeneity of the apicultural industry within the European Union. The high proportion of non-professional beekeepers and the small mean number of colonies per beekeeper were the only common characteristics at European level. The tremendous variation in European apicultural industries has implication for any comprehensive epidemiological or economic analysis of the industry. This variability needs to be taken into account for such analysis as well as for future policy development. The industry would be served if beekeeping registration was uniformly implemented across member states. Better information on the package bee and queen production would help in understanding the ability of the industry to replace lost honey bee stocks.

-The first pan-European harmonized active epidemiological surveillance program on honeybee colony mortality (EPILOBEE) was set up across 17 European Member States to estimate honeybee colony mortality over winter and during the beekeeping season. In nine Member States, overwinter losses were higher and statistically different from the empirical level of 10 % under which the level of overwinter mortality was considered as acceptable with usual beekeeping conditions. In four other countries, these losses were lower. Using multivariable Poisson regression models, it was showed that the size of the operation and apiary and the clinically detected varroosis, American foulbrood (AFB), and nosemosis before winter significantly affected 2012-2013 overwinter losses. Clinically detected diseases, the size of the operation and apiary, and the non-participation to a common veterinary treatment significantly affected 2013 summer losses. EPILOBEE was a prerequisite to implement future projects studying risk factors affecting colony health such as multiple and co-exposure to pesticides.honeybee health / EPILOBEE / epidemiological survey / winter mortality / seasonal mortality INTRODUCTIONNumerous hazards threaten honeybee populations (Apis mellifera ) worldwide. Many publications that looked into colony losses from any part of the world reported that several biological and environmental factors acting alone or in combination have the potential to cause premature colony mortality (Genersch et al. 2010;Potts et al. 2010; Spleen et al. 2013). In the USA and Canada, alarming losses of honeybee colonies were recently reported (Steinhauer et al. 2014). In Europe, the decrease in honeybee colonies was estimated at Corresponding author: M. Chauzat, marie-

The first detection of Aethina tumida Murray (the small hive beetle) in Italy occurred on 5 September 2014. Three nuclei containing honey bees (Apis mellifera) and located in a clementine (citrus) orchard near an important international harbour in the Calabria region (southern Italy) were heavily infested with adult and larval A. tumida. A. tumida infestation is a notifiable disease of honey bees in the European Union as well as an OIE listed disease. To prevent any A. tumida introduction, the importation of honey bees is regulated strictly in the European Union (Commission Regulation (EU) No. 206/2010). Early reaction measures adopted in Italy require that beekeepers must notify A. tumida discovery to the local veterinary services and cannot move their colonies. Furthermore, a protection area (20 km radius) and surveillance (100 km radius) zone should be established. The surveillance zone now includes the entire territory of Calabria region. Compulsory visits to all apiaries in the protection zone with the collection of the spatial information by means of a georeferentiation process (georeferentiation can be defined as the process to describe a location relative to the earth, in this context the process consists on the collection of the spatial coordinate of a point that represents the spatial location of the apiaries by means of a GPS device) and colony inspection according to 5% expected prevalence (95% CI) are applied. Destruction of infested apiaries is compulsory and the soil under the infested colonies must be ploughed and treated with pyrethroids. If apiaries in the protection zone are found to be negative, traps are placed. In the surveillance zone, veterinarians visit apiaries that are selected according to a risk analysis (migration in infested areas, honey bee or materials exchange) or randomly and colonies are inspected according to 2% expected prevalence (95% CI). Furthermore, in Italy as well in the rest of Europe, investigations are in progress by competent authorities to make an inventory of all bees and colonies moved from Calabria during 2014.Subsequent controls on colonies should be implemented. People from the honey bee network (beekeepers, veterinarians, beekeeping material producers and distributors) should be aware and informed of the hazard posed by A. tumida to honey bees. Detección de Aethina tumida Murray (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) en Italia: los brotes y las medidas de reacción tempranaResumen La primera detección de Aethina tumida Murray (el pequeño escarabajo de la colmena) en Italia se produjo el 5 de septiembre de 2014. Tres núcleos ubicados en un huerto de clementinas cerca de un importante puerto internacional en la región de Calabria (sur de Italia) aparecieron muy infectados con la presencia de coleópteros adultos y de larvas. La infestación por A. tumida es una enfermedad de las abejas de Downloaded by [UQ Library] at 09:34 16 June 2015 570 Mutinelli et al.

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