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. 2024 May 2;14(1):10079.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-59513-6.

First large-scale study reveals important losses of managed honey bee and stingless bee colonies in Latin America

Fabrice Requier  1   2 Malena Sibaja Leyton  3   4 Carolina L Morales  4   5 Lucas A Garibaldi  4   6   7 Agostina Giacobino  4   8 Martin Pablo Porrini  4   9 Juan Manuel Rosso-Londoño  10 Rodrigo A Velarde  4 Andrea Aignasse  11 Patricia Aldea-Sánchez  4   12 Mariana Laura Allasino  13 Daniela Arredondo  4   14 Carina Audisio  4   15 Natalia Bulacio Cagnolo  4   8 Marina Basualdo  4   16 Belén Branchiccela  4   17 Rafael A Calderón  4   18 Loreley Castelli  4   14 Dayson Castilhos  19 Francisca Contreras Escareño  4   20 Adriana Correa-Benítez  4   21 Fabiana Oliveira da Silva  4   22 Diego Silva Garnica  23 Grecia de Groot  4   5 Andres Delgado-Cañedo  4   24 Hermógenes Fernández-Marín  4   25 Breno M Freitas  26 Alberto Galindo-Cardona  4   27 Nancy Garcia  28 Paula M Garrido  4   9 Tugrul Giray  29 Lionel Segui Gonçalves  4   19   30 Lucas Landi  4   31   32 Daniel Malusá Gonçalves  33 Silvia Inés Martinez  4   34 Pablo Joaquín Moja  4   35 Ana Molineri  4   8 Pablo Fernando Müller  4   36 Enrique Nogueira  4   37 Adriana Pacini  4   8 María Alejandra Palacio  4   38   39 Guiomar Nates Parra  4   40 Alejandro Parra-H  4   41 Kátia Peres Gramacho  4   19 Eleazar Pérez Castro  4   42 Carmen Sílvia Soares Pires  43 Francisco J Reynaldi  4   44 Anais Rodríguez Luis  4   45 Carmen Rossini  4   46 Milton Sánchez Armijos  4 Estela Santos  4   47 Alejandra Scannapieco  4   48 Yamandú Mendoza Spina  4   49 José María Tapia González  4   50 Andrés Marcelo Vargas Fernández  4   51 Blandina Felipe Viana  52 Lorena Vieli  53 Carlos Ariel Yadró García  4   45 Karina Antúnez  4   14
Affiliations

First large-scale study reveals important losses of managed honey bee and stingless bee colonies in Latin America

Fabrice Requier et al. Sci Rep. .

Erratum in

  • Publisher Correction: First large-scale study reveals important losses of managed honey bee and stingless bee colonies in Latin America.
    Requier F, Leyton MS, Morales CL, Garibaldi LA, Giacobino A, Porrini MP, Rosso-Londoño JM, Velarde RA, Aignasse A, Aldea-Sánchez P, Allasino ML, Arredondo D, Audisio C, Cagnolo NB, Basualdo M, Branchiccela B, Calderón RA, Castelli L, Castilhos D, Escareño FC, Correa-Benítez A, da Silva FO, Garnica DS, de Groot G, Delgado-Cañedo A, Fernández-Marín H, Freitas BM, Galindo-Cardona A, Garcia N, Garrido PM, Giray T, Gonçalves LS, Landi L, Malusá Gonçalves D, Martinez SI, Moja PJ, Molineri A, Müller PF, Nogueira E, Pacini A, Palacio MA, Parra GN, Parra-H A, Peres Gramacho K, Castro EP, Pires CSS, Reynaldi FJ, Luis AR, Rossini C, Sánchez Armijos M, Santos E, Scannapieco A, Spina YM, Tapia González JM, Vargas Fernández AM, Viana BF, Vieli L, Yadró García CA, Antúnez K. Requier F, et al. Sci Rep. 2024 Jun 18;14(1):14061. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-64759-1. Sci Rep. 2024. PMID: 38890387 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Abstract

Over the last quarter century, increasing honey bee colony losses motivated standardized large-scale surveys of managed honey bees (Apis mellifera), particularly in Europe and the United States. Here we present the first large-scale standardized survey of colony losses of managed honey bees and stingless bees across Latin America. Overall, 1736 beekeepers and 165 meliponiculturists participated in the 2-year survey (2016-2017 and 2017-2018). On average, 30.4% of honey bee colonies and 39.6% of stingless bee colonies were lost per year across the region. Summer losses were higher than winter losses in stingless bees (30.9% and 22.2%, respectively) but not in honey bees (18.8% and 20.6%, respectively). Colony loss increased with operation size during the summer in both honey bees and stingless bees and decreased with operation size during the winter in stingless bees. Furthermore, losses differed significantly between countries and across years for both beekeepers and meliponiculturists. Overall, winter losses of honey bee colonies in Latin America (20.6%) position this region between Europe (12.5%) and the United States (40.4%). These results highlight the magnitude of bee colony losses occurring in the region and suggest difficulties in maintaining overall colony health and economic survival for beekeepers and meliponiculturists.

Keywords: Beekeeping; Colony loss; Meliponiculture; Monitoring program; Pollinators; South America.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Spatial distribution of the data collection for (A) the 2016–2017 survey and (B) the 2017–2018 survey over Latin America. The colors show the response from beekeepers (in red) and meliponiculturists (in blue).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Operation size (log-transformed number of colonies) effects on colony loss in (A, B) summer, (C, D) winter, and (E, F) annual periods in Latin America. Honey bees are presented in red (A, C, E) and stingless bees in blue (B, D, F). Thick lines show the GLM predictions with shaded areas indicating the 95% CI. These lines are dashed if they are non-significant.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Honey bee colony loss for (A) summer, (B) winter, and (C) annual periods in Latin America. Dots represent the predicted total loss per country and year, with thick lines indicating the 95% CI (based on GLM predictions). Countries are ordered by decreasing loss values. The colors distinguish the two years of the data collection (2016–2017 in orange and 2017–2018 in brown). Horizontal dashed lines represent the average value for Latin America with different colors when the year effect was significant.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Stingless bee colony loss comparison with honey bees for (A) summer, (B) winter, and (C) annual periods in Latin America. Dots represent the predicted total loss per country and year, with thick lines indicating the 95% CI (based on GLM predictions). Countries are ordered by decreasing loss values. Horizontal dashed lines represent the average value of stingless bee loss (in blue) and honey bee loss (in red) for Latin America.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Comparison of winter colony loss of honey bees among large-scale monitoring initiatives including Latin America (the present SOLATINA initiative), the United States (the BIP initiative) and Europe (the COLOSS initiative, that also includes non-European countries such as Algeria). (A) Winter loss over the 2016–2017 survey and (B) over the 2017–2018 survey. The winter period represents October 1st to March 31st in the Northern Hemisphere and April 1st to September 30th in the Southern Hemisphere. (C) Predicted total winter loss of honey bees per large-scale monitoring initiative and year, with thick lines indicating the 95% CI (based on GLM predictions). Large-scale monitoring initiatives are ordered by decreasing loss values. The colors distinguish the two years of the data collection (2016–2017 in orange and 2017–2018 in brown).

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