citizen science

4-Year Overview of Winter Colony Losses in Greece: Citizen Science Evidence That Transitioning to Organic Beekeeping Practices Reduces Colony Losses

ArticlesBy EvangeliaKagiali 20. February 2023

The honey bee is one of the most important pollinators with a close relationship to humans. The questionnaire from the non-governmental association “COLOSS”, answered by beekeepers around the world, is a valuable tool for monitoring and analyzing factors involved in overwintering losses, as well as for understanding the evolution of the beekeeping sector over the…

Honey bee colony loss rates in 37 countries using the COLOSS survey for winter 2019–2020

ArticlesBy RobertBrodschneider 6. September 2022

Abstract This article presents managed honey bee colony loss rates over winter 2019/20 resulting from using the standardised COLOSS questionnaire in 37 countries. Six countries were from outside Europe, including, for the first time in this series of articles, New Zealand. The 30,491 beekeepers outside New Zealand reported 4.5% of colonies with unsolvable queen problems,…

CSI Pollen: Diversity of Honey Bee Collected Pollen Studied by Citizen Scientists

ArticlesBy RobertBrodschneider 3. November 2021

Abstract A diverse supply of pollen is an important factor for honey bee health, but information about the pollen diversity available to colonies at the landscape scale is largely missing. In this COLOSS study, beekeeper citizen scientists sampled and analyzed the diversity of pollen collected by honey bee colonies. As a simple measure of diversity,…