Scientific note: colony losses survey in Turkey and causes of bee deaths

Abstract

There have been unexpected and alarmingcolony losses in different regions of the world in thepast few years (reviewed in Oldroyd, 2007; EFSA,2008; see also vanEngelsdorp et al., 2008). Concur-rent with those in the US, high colony losses alsowerereportedinTurkey(Girayetal.,2007). Healthof honey bees in Turkey is of general importance,both because of native honey bee biodiversity (seeBodur et al., 2007; reviewed in Kence, 2006)anda high number of domestic colonies (>5 million;FAOSTAT, 2008), which is second only to China.We investigated the extent and causes of losses inTurkey using a questionnaire study, which was con-ducted in 2007 and covered the three previous years.This report includes analyses of 288 question-naires reporting on 35597 colonies and, in contrastwith a preliminary report (88 questionnaires; Girayet al., 2007), provides a broad representation ofgeographical regions, a better estimate of regionalcolony losses, and novel insights such as on colonycollapse disorder (CCD) symptoms and losses.Questionnaires were collected through an aca-demic and trade journal for beekeeping (U. BeeJ.), local beekeeping organizations, their field repre-sentatives, the internet, and Turkish mail. Returnedquestionnaires (see supplemental information S1)included names and contacts of beekeepers. The re-sults were coded and analyzed by different authorsCorresponding author: T. Giray,tgiray2@yahoo.com*Manuscript editor: David TarpyOnline material is available at:http://www.apidologie.orgto maintain blindness and confidentiality. Statisticalanalyses were performed using JMP