Health status of honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera) and disease-related risk factors for colony losses in Austria.

ABSTRACT: Austrian beekeepers frequently suffered severe colony losses during the last decade similar to trends all over Europe. This first surveillance study aimed to describe the health status of Austrian bee colonies and to analyze the reasons for losses for both the summer and winter season in Austria. In this study 189 apiaries all over Austria were selected using a stratified random sampling approach and inspected three times between July 2015 and spring 2016 by trained bee inspectors. The inspectors made interviews with the beekeepers about their beekeeping practice and the history of the involved colonies. They inspected a total of 1596 colonies for symptoms of nine bee pests and diseases (four of them notifiable diseases) and took bee samples for varroa mite infestation analysis. The most f

SUBMITTER: Morawetz L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6615611 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature