Understanding COVID-19 from an exotic honey bee-disease perspective

This article compares the development of the highly infectious COVID-19 disease in humans with infections or infestations in honey bees. The importance of knowledge on the exotic nature of COVID-19 and each of its variants in providing a useful insight as to how it would be expected to develop, and in particular the expected reduction in its virulence over time, is also discussed.

Surveillance of Viruses in Varroa destructor Samples Collected from Honey Bee Colonies in Ontario, Canada, between 2015 and 2019

Varroa destructor parasitism is associated with extreme honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony losses in the northern hemisphere. Varroa destructor causes severe damage, including a decrease in bee longevity and immunosuppression, and acts as a vector for viruses, such as Deformed wing virus (DWV-A). The surveillance of viral pathogens in V. destructor samples is essential to assess risks of emerging virulent viral variants (such as VDV-1) and evaluate their impact on honey bee health. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify viral pathogens in V. destructor and honey bee samples collected in Ontario, Canada, from 2015 to 2019 with the use of metagenomics and real time PCR (qPCR). DWV-A and VDV-1 had the highest abundance of viral transcripts (7.5 log2 and 5.72 log2, respectively). Acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV) and Bee macula virus were also identified. Viral identification and quantification in V. destructor samples using metagenomics will facilitate the surveillance of viral pathogens. This surveillance technique will assist diagnostic laboratories in delivering timely and accurate diagnoses and risk assessments, which in turn will help honey bee producers to take adequate measures to mitigate the damage caused by V. destructor and associated viruses. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Development and assessment of an epidemiologic dashboard for surveillance of Varroa destructor in Ontario apiaries.

Varroosis (caused by the Varroa destructor mite) is a key health issue for honey bees in North America. Because these mites can exist in reservoirs of feral honey bee colonies, eradication is impossible, and instead efforts are made to maintain mites below a critical threshold. Monitoring for Varroa mites within a population is key for allocating resources and targeting interventions but surveillance can be difficult and/or expensive. This project aims to reflect on the success of data dashboards developed throughout the 2019-coronavirus pandemic and showcase how these methods can improve surveillance of Varroa mite infestations in Ontario, Canada. Dashboards provide a consistent source of information and epidemiologic metrics through data visualizations, and mobilize data otherwise bound to tables and intermittent reports. In the present work, an interactive dashboard for the surveillance of Varroa mite infestations across the province is proposed. This dashboard was developed using routine ministry inspection data to depict the spatio-temporal distribution of mites across a five-year data collection period. Through interactive figures and plots, able to be disaggregated to a specific region and time frame, this dashboard will allow for members of the beekeeping community to monitor provincial mite levels throughout the season. Seven criteria found to be common across highly actionable COVID-19 dashboards were used in a beta testing stage of development to assess the quality of the dashboard, and critically reflect on its strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, future directions for surveillance dashboards are explored, including integration with citizen science data collection to develop a comprehensive province-wide surveillance system. The outcome of this project is a functional dashboard proof-of-concept for population-level monitoring of Varroa mites and a model for future tools designed for other species and diseases.

Can beekeeping improve mental wellbeing during times of crisis?

This paper examined how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected those interested in honey bees and the outdoors. It was investigated whether being outdoors and/or beekeeping has been a benefit to mental health using personal stories, examples from research, beekeeping groups, communities and the health service. The increase in online beekeeping teaching resources has helped bring knowledge about bees to perhaps a wider audience than previously, but training to become a beekeeper does need a certain hands-on element with beehives in an apiary setting. This is not just in order to gain confidence in handling bees, but also to learn from other beekeepers, and to bond in a social context. Although it is clear from the personal contributions to this article that beekeeping has helped immensely during the time of the COVID-19 crisis, more scientific research is needed to quantify the actual wellbeing effects. However, watching bees feeding on the flowers in gardens and parks is without doubt a pleasurable activity, and can be done by everyone.

Quarterly report of investigations of suspected exotic diseases: July to September 2021

Exotic pest and disease investigations are managed and reported by the Ministry for Primary Industries' (MPI's) Diagnostic and Surveillance Directorate. This article presents a summary of investigations of suspect exotic and emerging pests and diseases in New Zealand during the period from July to September 2021.

56th Congress of Veterinary Epidemiology

This proceedings contains 10 papers on risk management policy of the ministry of health, labour and welfare for ensuring safe wild game meat, prospective of application of food safety risk assessment for game meat, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for animal owners, shelter medicine and COVID-19, the characteristics of bats as natural reservoirs of the novel coronavirus, chalkbrood in honey bees and its control measures, the economic impact of classical swine fever in Japan, benzalkonium chloride resistance in Listeria monocytogenes isolated in Japan, COVID-19 outbreak and epidemiological research in Japan and the amendment of the act on domestic animal infectious diseases control.

5th Congress of beekeeping and bee products with international participation, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, November 2020

These proceedings contain a number of papers discussing current topics, from hives and beekeeping conditions, through the latest knowledge on good practice in pest control in agriculture through the quality of honey, its presence on the world market and control of counterfeiting to the health effects of honey and other bee products. Topics on COVID-19 are included from the aspect of the impact on beekeeping and the potential application of bee products in relieving the symptoms of the disease.

Quality assessment of honey in three different geographical areas from Republic of Moldova

One of the empirical and image products of the Republic of Moldova is bee honey. Its assortment is due to the variety of landforms, as well as the diversity of flora specific to geographical regions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, domestic consumers had limited access to bee honey. This was caused by the restrictions imposed in order to organize fairs and agricultural markets which are one of the main sources for the purchase of bee products in the Republic of Moldova. At the same time, the analysis of trademarks in supermarkets highlighted the preferences of honey consumption as follows: polyfloral honey-28.57%, lime honey-20.40% and acacia honey-14.28%. In order to evaluate the quality of honey from small producers and highlight the specific characteristics of geographical areas, 60 samples were analyzed that included 3 types of honey: polyflora, sunflower and linden collected from 3 different geographic areas: Soroca area (North), area Ungheni (Center), Stefan Voda area (South). Honey samples were declared harvest of 2020. They were analyzed physico-chemically using methods provided by national and EU standards. The results obtained from the analysis of pollen in honey confirm the botanical origin declared by beekeepers and allowed to highlight the types of pollen specific to each area. Following the determination of qualitative indices: reaction with ethyl alcohol, with resorcinol;insoluble matter, cereal flour, gelatin and starch, it was found that the most inconsistencies were found in linden honey. Some indicators were close to the maximum permissible values specified in regulatory documents. The water content found in the honey samples was quite varied, and ranged from 16.05% +or- 0.11% to 19.89% +or- 0.13%, but these samples were within the limits of the standards. Total acidity ranged from 6.19 +or- 0.13 to 27.20 +or- 0.03 which falls within the established norms (up to 50.00 cm3 NaOH solution in (milliequivalents) per 100 g of honey). According to the SIE Lab space, all samples have a yellowish tint, this is indicated by positive values on the b* axis. However, honey samples from the southern region of Moldova showed the presence of greenish pollen, as evidenced by the reduced values on the a* axis. Our research reveals the quality level of honey from three different areas of the Republic of Moldova and the variation of quality parameters due to factors such as geographical region, climatic conditions, botanical origin and handling or storage conditions.

Honey Bee Queen Production: Canadian Costing Case Study and Profitability Analysis.

The decline in managed honey bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) colony health worldwide has had a significant impact on the beekeeping industry. To mitigate colony losses, beekeepers in Canada and around the world introduce queens into replacement colonies; however, Canada's short queen rearing season has historically limited the production of early season queens. As a result, Canadian beekeepers rely on the importation of foreign bees, particularly queens from warmer climates. Importing a large proportion of (often mal-adapted) queens each year creates a dependency on foreign bee sources, putting beekeeping, and pollination sectors at risk in the event of border closures, transportation issues, and other restrictions as is currently happening due to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Although traditional Canadian queen production is unable to fully meet early season demand, increasing domestic queen production to meet mid- and later season demand would reduce Canada's dependency. As well, on-going studies exploring the potential for overwintering queens in Canada may offer a strategy to have early season domestic queens available. Increasing the local supply of queens could provide Canadian beekeepers, farmers, and consumers with a greater level of agricultural stability and food security. Our study is the first rigorous analysis of the economic feasibility of queen production. We present the costs of queen production for three Canadian operations over two years. Our results show that it can be profitable for a beekeeping operation in Canada to produce queen cells and mated queens and could be one viable strategy to increase the sustainability of the beekeeping industry.