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 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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The Small Hive Beetle (Aethina tumida Murray, 1867) is an invasive scavenger of honeybees. Originally endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, it is regulated internationally in order to preserve the areas still free from this species. To ensure the reliability of official diagnoses in case of introduction, an inter-laboratory comparison was organised on the identification of A. tumida by morphology and real-time PCR. Twenty-two National Reference Laboratories in Europe participated in the study and analysed 12 samples with adult coleopterans and insect larvae. The performance of the laboratories was evaluated in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity was satisfactory for all the participants and both types of methods, thus fully meeting the diagnostic challenge of confirming all truly positive cases as positive. Two participants encountered specificity problems. For one, the anomaly was minor whereas, for the other, the issues concerned a larger number of results, especially real-time PCR, which probably were related to inexperience with this technique. The comparison demonstrated the reliability of official diagnosis, including the entire analytical process of A. tumida identification: from the first step of the analysis to the expression of opinions. The performed diagnostic tools, in parallel with field surveillance, are essential to managing A. tumida introduction.