THE PROGRAM AIMS TO STUDY AND MONITOR THE DISAPPEARANCE OF BEE COLONIES IN THE EU.

Spain is one of the 17 EU countries to which last July, The European Commission accepted a hive surveillance project. The community allocation planned for Spain is 205.050 €, being the total budget of the project 292.929 €.

The surveillance program will have two axes. One, active surveillance based on visits carried out by beekeeping inspectors on a representative sample of apiaries, and another, passive surveillance based on reports of suspected cases by beekeepers and other operators.

The objectives of the plan are to estimate the mortality rate in all stations; evaluate the pre-winter infestation of Varroa destructor in apiaries and colonies; evaluate ABPV and DWV pre-winter infestation of apiaries and colonies; estimate the clinical prevalence of the main bee diseases, before and after the winter season, and during the active beekeeping season, American foulbrood, European foulbrood, Varroasis, Nosemosis and CBPV. And finally, reinforce the alert in case of detection of exotic arthropods, Aetina tumida y Tropilaelaps spp.

Of the almost 100.000 existing apiaries in Spain will be sampled 200 chosen at random, of these the 22% will correspond to Andalusia, the 18% in Extremadura and the 16% in Valencia and Castilla-León. The rest is distributed among the rest of the Communities except the Balearic Islands., Madrid and Cantabria.

Three visits are planned to each of the apiaries that will be sampled., which will take place between September – November 2012, January – March 2013 and May – August 2013. The number of samples taken will depend on the size of the apiary., oscillating between 13 samples for apiaries of more than 61 hives or all hives when there are less than 8 beehives.

On the other hand, The beekeeper will prepare a monthly report with external observations of the hives and will alert if the presence of mortality or abnormal behavior is detected..

The European Commission has granted 3,3 million euros to co-finance surveillance studies on the disappearance of bee colonies. Community co-financing does not exceed 70% of the total budget or 595 € per visit to an apiary. (Decision 2012/362/EU).

In addition to Spain, They will also receive community co-financing for these projects: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.