DOI: https://doi.org/10.5513/JCEA01/27.2.5251
Original scientific paper
Winter losses of honey bee colonies in the period from 2015 to 2025
2026, 27 (2) p. 374-390
Janja FILIPI, Marica DRAŽIĆ, Ivana LONČAR
Abstract
Beekeeping is a traditional activity in Europe and Croatia; its long-term sustainability under current environmental and production conditions directly depends on conserving honey bee colonies. The occurrence of higher losses in certain areas is not unusual; however, over the past two decades, significant losses have been continuously recorded worldwide. Within the framework of the international non-profit organization COLOSS, data on winter losses have been collected in more than 40 countries using a standardized questionnaire. The study was conducted in Croatia from 2015 to 2025, and the questionnaire included questions on the number of colonies wintered in autumn as well as the number of colonies lost, as determined during spring inspections. Data on colony losses in 2020 were not collected. In total, 2,173 valid responses were collected from beekeepers who overwintered 145,717 honey bee colonies. The overall losses for the study period from 2015 to 2025 were 19.04% (95% CI: 18.16–19.95). The highest losses were recorded among beekeepers with 1 to 15 colonies (33.63%, 95% CI: 30.11–37.34), who also had the highest proportion of weak colonies at 25.04% (95% CI: 21.70–28.71). The largest number of beekeepers (878, or 40.4%) experienced winter losses of up to 10%, while an almost equal number of beekeepers (854, or 39.3%) lost more than 20% of their colonies.
Keywords
winter losses, honey bees, weak colonies, questionnaire
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