Colony Collapse Disorder - Management

Management

As of 1 March 2007, the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (MAAREC) offered the following tentative recommendations for beekeepers noticing the symptoms of CCD:

1. Do not combine collapsing colonies with strong colonies.
2. When a collapsed colony is found, store the equipment where you can use preventive measures to ensure that bees will not have access to it.
3. If you feed your bees sugar syrup, use Fumagillin.
4. If you are experiencing colony collapse and see a secondary infection, such as European Foulbrood, treat the colonies with oxytetracycline, not tylosin.

Another proposed remedy for farmers of pollinated crops is simply to switch from using beekeepers to the use of native bees, such as bumble bees and mason bees. Native bees can be helped to establish themselves by providing suitable nesting locations and some additional crops the bees could use to feed from (e.g. when the pollination season of the commercial crops on the farm has ended).

A British beekeeper successfully developed a strain of bees that are resistant to varroa mites. Russian honey bees also resist infestations of varroa mites but are still susceptible to other factors associated with colony collapse disorder, and have detrimental traits that limit their relevance in commercial apiculture.

In the United Kingdom, a national bee database was set up in March 2009 to monitor colony collapse as a result of a 15% reduction in the bee population that had taken place over the previous two years. In particular, the register, funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and administered by the National Bee Unit, will be used to monitor health trends and help establish whether the honey industry is under threat from supposed colony collapse disorder. Britain's 20,000 beekeepers have been invited to participate. In October 2010, David Aston of the British Beekeepers’ Association stated, ‘We still do not believe CCD is a cause of colony losses in the UK, however we are continuing to experience colony losses, many if not most of which can be explained. The approach being taken in UK beekeeping is to raise the profile of integrated bee health management, in other words identifying and trying to eliminate factors which reduce the health status of a colony. This incorporates increasing the skill level of beekeepers through training and education, raising the profile of habitat destruction and its effect of forage (nectar and pollen) availability, and of course research on the incidence and distribution of diseases and conditions in the UK together with more applied research and development on providing solutions."