Q: How serious is the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and what are the specific symptoms?
A: First you must know that CCD is just a part of the colony losses worldwide – it’s less than 40 % in USA and 5 % in Europe. CCD has two specific symptoms:
1) Nearly all bees leave the hive in 2 to 10 days. Sometimes, the queen and a few newly emerged adults are left behind, Sometimes, brood (eggs, larvae, pupae) remains in the comb and succumbs to lack of feed and incubation.
2) Stores remain in the combs: honey & “bee bread” (stored pollen). They are not destroyed by the wax moth and seem to be toxic when immediately re-introduced into another colony.
Q: Can you also give us some figures to understand the magnitude of colony losses? I heard that in some countries in Europe, beekeepers lost up to 50% of their families.
A: Until now, it is still difficult to have figures for an entire country. The problem of colony losses is represented as a leopard skin on a map. Reliable databases are fundamental for the scientists, the associations and the politicians. The CoLoss Group is working on it. In USA, they are facing an annual bee colony mortality of 36 %!
Q: What should beekeepers do when they are hit by CCD? Report to local sanitary authorities? Get bees analyzed in a lab to determine their cause of death?
A: Of course they must report to local sanitary authorities, but not only. They should report to their National Beekeeping Associations too. Forget laboratories in case of CCD because the main symptom of it is: no bees in the beehive, so no sample to analyse!
Q: How can beekeepers protect their hives from, for example, the harmful pesticides used in agriculture?
A: By moving their apiaries to a safe location. Unfortunately, there are no other solutions so far.
Q: What could beekeepers do concretely to raise awareness or to contribute to a possible solution? For example, in France some of the potential harmful pesticides were banned thanks to joint action of beekeepers.
A: Not only in France but in Germany, Italy and Slovenia too. A good strategy is to inform the media, to make pressure on politicians, to help the independent scientists, which can also be quite difficult due to the powerful lobbies.
Q: Is there a global initiative to collect data on CCD?
A: In the near future the CoLoss network and three of Apimondia’s Working Groups will collaborate closer on this issue. Our president of the Apimondia Biology Commission, Karl Crailsheim, is collecting data during each Apimondia Congress. A paper with the results of data collected during the Apimondia Congress in Montpellier in 2009 was published in 2010 (K. Crailsheim, R. Brodschneider (2010) First global estimation of honey bee colony losses. Apidologie 41: 691).
Q: What is Apimondia doing concretely to deal with CCD and what are the overall solutions to mitigate the problem?
A: Apimondia, since its International Congress in Melbourne in 2007, is organizing "Round Tables" on this subject. Two of our Scientific Commissions are involved: "Bee Health" and "Technology". I am also doing lots of conferences on Colony Losses. We have a new Working Group within Apimondia on "Bees & Pesticides", coordinated by Gerard Arnold. Two other new working groups are also involved in this issue: Bees declared as an endangered species", coordinated by Peter Kozmus, and “Queen rearing and impact on the genetic variability (and the health) of productive bee colonies", coordinated by Maria Bouga.
The solutions exist but they are mainly political: we must change totally our agricultural AND beekeeping practices into more integrated pest management (IPM) and organic management.
Q: Is FAO taking any action to look into this problem?
A: As far I know, not yet.Only the EU is taking action through C.O.S.T. with money for the CoLoss network and for Beedoc and two big entities in USA.
Q: What is Beedoc?
A: Beedoc is another network of different partners from honeybee pathology, chemistry, genetics and apicultural extension aiming at improving colony health of honeybees.
Q: In conclusion, Gilles, do you have a message you want to send to our beekeepers?
A: The bees are on this planet for the last 100 million years. Since the last decade, in several places of the world, the beekeepers are facing an abnormal yearly bee colony mortality rate. First they must correct a possible wrong management in their own apiaries (artificial food, too much migration, no adapted queens to the local biotope, too heavy veterinary drugs to fight varroa, contaminated wax foundations, etc.). Then they must be transparent and give complete data to their associations. They must communicate their problem to the politicians, the farmers and the general public through the media. Finally, they must encourage everybody to use the forks as a tool to change the agriculture policy, by asking the supermarkets to provide more organic foods!
Source: teca
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