Since the alarm was first raised, many countries have created new monitoring methods to judge the status of their bee stocks. As a result we have much more data on bee populations, although coverage is still patchy and differences in survey methods make it hard to compare between continents.
It is clear that bees in the United States are still struggling. Beekeepers can tolerate up to 15% losses of colonies over winter, but the US is massively above this threshold, having lost 28.1% of colonies over the 2015-16 winter.
Canada, by contrast, reported 16.8% losses. This is better, but still above the level of losses at which beekeepers can easily restock.
Only recently have we had data from central Europe. There, honey bees seem to be doing better: 11.9% losses in 2015-16. Meanwhile, in New Zealand surveys only began in the last year and have reported winter loss of 10.7%. Australia does not yet have a countrywide survey of the state of bee colonies.
- More Here and paper - Death of the bee hive: understanding the failure of an insect society
It is clear that bees in the United States are still struggling. Beekeepers can tolerate up to 15% losses of colonies over winter, but the US is massively above this threshold, having lost 28.1% of colonies over the 2015-16 winter.
Canada, by contrast, reported 16.8% losses. This is better, but still above the level of losses at which beekeepers can easily restock.
Only recently have we had data from central Europe. There, honey bees seem to be doing better: 11.9% losses in 2015-16. Meanwhile, in New Zealand surveys only began in the last year and have reported winter loss of 10.7%. Australia does not yet have a countrywide survey of the state of bee colonies.
- More Here and paper - Death of the bee hive: understanding the failure of an insect society
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