TY - JOUR
T1 - A national survey of managed honey bee 2013–2014 annual colony losses in the USA
AU - Lee, Kathleen V.
AU - Steinhauer, Nathalie
AU - Rennich, Karen
AU - Wilson, Michael E.
AU - Tarpy, David R.
AU - Caron, Dewey M.
AU - Rose, Robyn
AU - Delaplane, Keith S.
AU - Baylis, Kathy
AU - Lengerich, Eugene J.
AU - Pettis, Jeff
AU - Skinner, John A.
AU - Wilkes, James T.
AU - Sagili, Ramesh
AU - vanEngelsdorp, Dennis
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank all respondents for their participation. We thank Brian Decker, Heather Eversole, Rachel Fahey, Andrew Garavito, and Meghan McConnell for entering the paper surveys into the database. Our gratitude goes out to the many beekeeping organizations, industry leaders, and beekeeping clubs that forwarded our appeal for participation emails. A special thank you is owed to USDA APHIS, the Apiary Inspectors of America, Eastern Apiculture Society, the American Honey Producers Association, the American Beekeeping Federation, Brushy Mountain Bee Farm, Bee Culture magazine, and American Bee Journal for sending out participation requests to their online audiences. This project was funded by a Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP) grant from US Department of Agriculture-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA): the Bee Informed Partnership and includes, in addition to several of the authors, Marla Spivak, Angela Spleen, Jerry Hayes, Robert Snyder, Ben Sallman, Liana Teigen, Ellen Topitzhofer, Dan Wyns, Danielle Downey, Lauren Rusert, Ed Levi, Shayne Madella, Grace Kunkel, Marjorie Gurganus, Karen Roccasecca, and Robyn Underwood, and the USDA-ARS Areawide Program on Bee Health. Thank you to the reviewers for the helpful comments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, INRA, DIB and Springer-Verlag France.
PY - 2015/5/1
Y1 - 2015/5/1
N2 - Honey bee colony losses are a major concern in the USA and across the globe. Long-term data on losses are critical for putting yearly losses in context. US colony loss surveys have been conducted yearly since the winter of 2006–2007. Here, we report the results from the eighth annual survey on winter losses and the second annual survey of summer and annual losses. There were 7425 valid respondents (7123 backyard, 190 sideline, and 112 commercial beekeepers) managing 497,855 colonies, 19 % of the total US colonies. Total losses reported were 19.8 % [95 % CI 19.3–20.3 %] over the summer, 23.7 % [95 % CI 23.3–24.1 %] over the winter, and 34.1 % [95 % CI 33.6–34.6 %] for the whole year. Average losses were 15.1 % [95 % CI 14.5–15.7 %] over the summer, 44.8 % [95 % CI 43.9–45.7 %] over the winter, and 51.1 % [95 % CI 50.2–51.6 %] for the whole year. While total winter loss was one of the lowest reported in 8 years, 66 % of all beekeepers had higher losses than they deemed acceptable.
AB - Honey bee colony losses are a major concern in the USA and across the globe. Long-term data on losses are critical for putting yearly losses in context. US colony loss surveys have been conducted yearly since the winter of 2006–2007. Here, we report the results from the eighth annual survey on winter losses and the second annual survey of summer and annual losses. There were 7425 valid respondents (7123 backyard, 190 sideline, and 112 commercial beekeepers) managing 497,855 colonies, 19 % of the total US colonies. Total losses reported were 19.8 % [95 % CI 19.3–20.3 %] over the summer, 23.7 % [95 % CI 23.3–24.1 %] over the winter, and 34.1 % [95 % CI 33.6–34.6 %] for the whole year. Average losses were 15.1 % [95 % CI 14.5–15.7 %] over the summer, 44.8 % [95 % CI 43.9–45.7 %] over the winter, and 51.1 % [95 % CI 50.2–51.6 %] for the whole year. While total winter loss was one of the lowest reported in 8 years, 66 % of all beekeepers had higher losses than they deemed acceptable.
KW - USA
KW - colony losses
KW - honey bee
KW - mortality
KW - survey
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U2 - 10.1007/s13592-015-0356-z
DO - 10.1007/s13592-015-0356-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84928999145
VL - 46
SP - 292
EP - 305
JO - Apidologie
JF - Apidologie
SN - 0044-8435
IS - 3
ER -