Guided tour of this website in English language for Apimondia contest judges.

This website submitted for the Apimondia contest Class “A4. Website – on beekeeping topic” is a website in local language, covering three topics that combine beekeeping and research on honey bee colony losses in a new way:

1. Collecting honey bee colony mortality data from beekeepers, using a citizen science (crowdsourcing) approach.

Crowdsourcing is the collection of experiences of many people on survival of their honey bee colonies. During certain months of the year, this homepage hosts a survey for beekeepers to submit their colony losses and details of hive management, e. g. how they treat colonies against parasites. The survey follows internationally harmonized guidelines and results are used for research by recognized scientists.

Winter colony losses of honey bees. These results are based on more than 6600 datafiles submitted by beekeepers maintaining more than 150000 colonies!

2. The data collected can be analyzed by beekeepers in an online database.

More than 5000 datafiles entered by beekeepers can be filtered and analysed by all means. One can compare colony losses of different hive management techniques, treatment against Varroa-mites, different regions, years etc. online. This is aiming to help understanding complex reasons of colony losses and can be used for education on several levels (pupils, students, beekeepers, public audience).

Try out the database yourself!

Screenshot from a query in the database. Shown are winter colony losses of honey bees in different regions.

3. Presentation of selected scientific research that is of importance for honey bee health or beekeeping.

The long term aim of this website and the content presented is to reduce colony losses and increase the well-being of honey bees by transfer of knowledge. Also the participation of beekeepers in scientific investigations and the dissemination of scientific results to beekeeping shall be strengthened. Articles, picture galleries, videos are posted.