# General beekeeping > Bee health >  German Bee Monitoring Project

## Jon

Some useful background info on bee health.
Surprise surprise, varroa and viruses seem to be the main problem.
genuine surprise that nosema is not implicated.
Having a young queen heading the colony is also important.




> Abstract – TheWestern honey bee, Apis mellifera, is the most important animal pollinator in agriculture worldwide providing more than 90% of the commercial pollination services. Due to the development in agriculture the demands for honey bee pollination are steadily increasing stressing the pollination capacity of the global managed honey bee population. Hence, the long-term decline of managed honey bee hives in Europe and North-America is of great concern and stimulated intensive research into the possible factors presumably causing honey bee colony collapse. We here present a four-year study involving more than 1200 bee colonies from about 120 apiaries which were monitored for the entire study period. Bee samples were collected twice a year to analyze various pathogenic factors including the ectoparasiticmite Varroa destructor, fungi (Nosema spec., Ascosphaera apis), the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae, and several viruses.
> Data on environmental factors, beekeeping management practice, and pesticides were also collected. All data were statistically analyzed in respect to the overwintering mortality of the colonies. We can demonstrate
> for several factors that they are significantly related to the observed winter losses of the monitored honey bee colonies: (i) high varroa infestation level, (ii) infection with deformed wing virus (DWV) and
> acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV) in autumn, (iii) queen age, and (iv) weakness of the colonies in autumn.
> No effects could be observed for Nosema spec. or pesticides. The implications of these findings will be discussed.


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5131613/Stuf...ng_Project.pdf

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## Calum

ummm, probably best to move this right to the special place - pesticides are not blamed!

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