Dataset Information

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 frequently detected diseases were three brood diseases: Varroosis, Chalkbrood and Sacbrood. The notifiable bee pests Aethina tumida and Tropilaelaps spp. were not detected. During the study period 10.8% of the 1596 observed colonies died. Winter proved to be the most critical season, in which 75% of the reported colony losses happened. Risks for suffering summer losses increased significantly, when colonies were weak in July, had queen problems or a high varroa mite infestation level on bees in July. Risks for suffering winter losses increased significantly, when the colonies had a high varroa mite infestation level on bees in September, were weak in September, had a queen older than one year or the beekeeper had few years of beekeeping experience. However, the effect of a high varroa mite infestation level in September had by far the greatest potential to raise the winter losses compared to the other significant factors.

SUBMITTER: Morawetz L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6615611 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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

Morawetz Linde L Köglberger Hemma H Griesbacher Antonia A Derakhshifar Irmgard I Crailsheim Karl K Brodschneider Robert R Moosbeckhofer Rudolf R

PloS one 20190709 7

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 inspector ...[more]

PMID: 31287830

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Project description:Queen health is closely linked to colony performance in honey bees as a single queen is normally responsible for all egg laying and brood production within the colony. In the U. S. in recent years, queens have been failing at a high rate; with 50% or greater of queens replaced in colonies within 6 months when historically a queen might live one to two years. This high rate of queen failure coincides with the high mortality rates of colonies in the US, some years with >50% of colonies dying. In the current study, surveys of sperm viability in US queens were made to determine if sperm viability plays a role in queen or colony failure. Wide variation was observed in sperm viability from four sets of queens removed from colonies that beekeepers rated as in good health (n = 12; average viability = 92%), were replacing as part of normal management (n = 28; 57%), or where rated as failing (n = 18 and 19; 54% and 55%). Two additional paired set of queens showed a statistically significant difference in viability between colonies rated by the beekeeper as failing or in good health from the same apiaries. Queens removed from colonies rated in good health averaged high viability (ca. 85%) while those rated as failing or in poor health had significantly lower viability (ca. 50%). Thus low sperm viability was indicative of, or linked to, colony performance. To explore the source of low sperm viability, six commercial queen breeders were surveyed and wide variation in viability (range 60-90%) was documented between breeders. This variability could originate from the drones the queens mate with or temperature extremes that queens are exposed to during shipment. The role of shipping temperature as a possible explanation for low sperm viability was explored. We documented that during shipment queens are exposed to temperature spikes (<8 and > 40°C) and these spikes can kill 50% or more of the sperm stored in queen spermathecae in live queens. Clearly low sperm viability is linked to colony performance and laboratory and field data provide evidence that temperature extremes are a potential causative factor.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Bees are confronting several environmental challenges, including the intermingled effects of malnutrition and disease. Intuitively, pollen is the healthiest nutritional choice, however, commercial substitutes, such as Bee-Pro and MegaBee, are widely used. Herein we examined how feeding natural and artificial diets shapes transcription in the abdomen of the honey bee, and how transcription shifts in combination with Nosema parasitism. RESULTS:Gene ontology enrichment revealed that, compared with poor diet (carbohydrates [C]), bees fed pollen (P?>?C), Bee-Pro (B?>?C), and MegaBee (M?>?C) showed a broad upregulation of metabolic processes, especially lipids; however, pollen feeding promoted more functions, and superior proteolysis. The superiority of the pollen diet was also evident through the remarkable overexpression of vitellogenin in bees fed pollen instead of MegaBee or Bee-Pro. Upregulation of bioprocesses under carbohydrates feeding compared to pollen (C?>?P) provided a clear poor nutritional status, uncovering stark expression changes that were slight or absent relatively to Bee-Pro (C?>?B) or MegaBee (C?>?M). Poor diet feeding (C?>?P) induced starvation response genes and hippo signaling pathway, while it repressed growth through different mechanisms. Carbohydrate feeding (C?>?P) also elicited 'adult behavior', and developmental processes suggesting transition to foraging. Finally, it altered the 'circadian rhythm', reflecting the role of this mechanism in the adaptation to nutritional stress in mammals. Nosema-infected bees fed pollen compared to carbohydrates (PN?>?CN) upheld certain bioprocesses of uninfected bees (P?>?C). Poor nutritional status was more apparent against pollen (CN?>?PN) than Bee-Pro (CN?>?BN) or MegaBee (CN?>?MN). Nosema accentuated the effects of malnutrition since more starvation-response genes and stress response mechanisms were upregulated in CN?>?PN compared to C?>?P. The bioprocess 'Macromolecular complex assembly' was also enriched in CN?>?PN, and involved genes associated with human HIV and/or influenza, thus providing potential candidates for bee-Nosema interactions. Finally, the enzyme Duox emerged as essential for guts defense in bees, similarly to Drosophila. CONCLUSIONS:These results provide evidence of the superior nutritional status of bees fed pollen instead of artificial substitutes in terms of overall health, even in the presence of a pathogen.

Dataset Information

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

Publications

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

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