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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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Abstract. Emergency oral fox vaccination campaigns, targeting a recent rabies epidemic in wild foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in north-eastern Italy, were implemented twice, first in the winter of 2009 and then in the spring of 2010. Following on an unsuccessful manual bait distribution campaign, vaccine baits were aerially distributed by helicopters using a satellite-navigated, computer-supported, automatic bait drop system. The flight paths were traced with distance of 500-1,000 m from one another to optimise helicopter missions and guarantee homogeneous coverage of the vaccination area. The vaccine distribution was evaluated by superimposing a 1 km-step grid and weighing the number of baits per cell. The implementation of a geographical information system for the management of vaccine distribution proved to be useful, both for the planning and execution phases, of the campaigns. It supported effective management of the flights and allowed near real-time monitoring of the campaigns. In addition, it facilitated the identification of areas with suboptimal bait density that would require additional flights or supplementary, manual distribution.