First large-scale study reveals important losses of honey bee and stingless bee colonies in Latin America

REQUIER, FABRICE; GARIBALDI, LUCAS A.

Scientific reports

Springer Nature

Año: 2024

2045-2322

Over the last quarter century, increasing bee colony losses motivated standardizedlarge-scale surveys of managed honey bees (Apis mellifera), particularly in Europeand the United States. Here we present the first large-scale standardized survey ofcolony losses of managed honey bees and stingless bees across Latin America.Overall, 1736 beekeepers and 165 meliponiculturists participated in the two-yearsurvey (2016-2017 and 2017-2018). On average, 30.4% of honey bee colonies and39.6% of stingless bee colonies were lost per year across the region. Summer losseswere higher than winter losses in stingless bees (30.9% and 22.2%, respectively) butnot in honey bees (18.8% and 20.6%, respectively). Colony loss increased withoperation size during the summer in both honey bees and stingless bees anddecreased during the winter in stingless bees. Furthermore, losses differedsignificantly between countries and across years for both beekeepers andmeliponiculturists. Overall, winter losses of honey bee colonies in Latin America(20.6%) position in between the United States (40.4%) and Europe (12.5%). Theseresults highlight the magnitude of bee colony losses occurring in the region andsuggest difficulties in maintaining overall colony health and survival for beekeepersand meliponiculturists.