Improvements to honeybee surveillance suggested

A study on honeybee surveillance systems conducted by the European Commission has proposed to align data collection methods between EU countries to improve comparison.

The report has come up with a methodology that can be adapted to the specific needs of research and policy advice, Efsa says.

The revision of data collection methods follows a European Food Safety Authority study on honeybee surveillance systems in 2009. This study concluded that surveillance systems are weak in the EU member states, and that there is a lack of coordination between national data and EU level data. This prevents member states from effectively estimating the number of colony mortalities.