Identifying the climatic drivers of honey bee disease in England and Wales.

ABSTRACT: Honey bee colony health has received considerable attention in recent years, with many studies highlighting multifactorial issues contributing to colony losses. Disease and weather are consistently highlighted as primary drivers of colony loss, yet little is understood about how they interact. Here, we combined disease records from government honey bee health inspections with meteorological data from the CEDA to identify how weather impacts EFB, AFB, CBP, varroosis, chalkbrood and sacbrood. Using R-INLA, we determined how different meteorological variables influenced disease prevalence and disease risk. Temperature caused an increase in the risk of both varroosis and sacbrood, but overall, the weather had a varying effect on the six honey bee diseases. The risk of disease was also spatiall

SUBMITTER: Rowland BW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8578631 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature