Comparison of apiculture and winter mortality of honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera) in Austria and Czechia

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15310%2F19%3A73597564" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15310/19:73597564 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167880919300027" target="_blank" >https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167880919300027</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2019.01.002" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.agee.2019.01.002</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Comparison of apiculture and winter mortality of honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera) in Austria and Czechia

Original language description

Honey bees are the most important managed pollinators and provide income because of bee products. In Austria and Czechia, we monitored winter losses of honey bee colonies and also collected information on the apicultural sector, hive management, population dynamics and treatment against the mite Varroa destructor from 2013–14 to 2016–17. Numbers of beekeepers and colonies, colony density and percentage of beekeepers in human population are higher in Czechia than in Austria. Winter loss rates of honey bee colonies ranged from 8.1% to 28.4% in Austria and 6.4% to 19.4% in Czechia, with significantly higher loss rates in all 4 investigated winters in Austria. The portion of colonies lost because of living colonies with unsolvable queen problems ranged from 3.6 to 4.4% in Austria and from 2.2 to 3.0% in Czechia. Despite of colony losses during winter, colony production in summer allows for compensation or even expansion of colony populations in both countries. We identified differences between the two countries in the treatments applied by beekeepers against the parasitic varroa mite. In Austria, organic acids are most commonly used, whereas the application of synthetic acaricides is widely spread in Czechia. Our study points at the better understanding of apiculture and the importance of international comparisons to facilitate our knowledge on honey bee colony losses.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

40301 - Veterinary science

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS &amp; ENVIRONMENT

ISSN

0167-8809

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

274

Issue of the periodical within the volume

MAR

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

9

Pages from-to

24-32

UT code for WoS article

000468248100003

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85059849861