Note prepared by the EU RL for Honeybee Health (Laboratory of  Anses Sophia Antipolis) Updated news (07th. March 2018) This article will no longer be updated. A new article on the surveillance of Aethina tumida in Italy in 2018 has been created here. To see the details of the outbreaks observed in 2016, please click here.     

On October 18th., the EU RL for Honeybee Health organised the third training on honeybee diseases. The training was dedicated to the PCR diagnosis methods (conventional and real-time) for detection, identification and/or quantification of honey bee pathogens. This training was intended for EU NRLs that have little or no experience in the diagnosis of bee diseases by PCR and wish to implement such methods. The requirements and recommendations for implementation of PCR diagnosis described in...

The EU RL for Honeybee Health held its 7th. annual workshop on 17th. October 2017. The main activities conducted by the EU RL in 2017 were presented. The agenda focused on the enhancement of diagnostic tools in parasitology, virology and bacteriology, the production of reference materials and the organization of two interlaboratory proficiency tests (ILPTs) in 2017 – one on Nosema spores counting by microscopy and another on the determination of neonicotinoid residues in beebread....

The EU RL for Honeybee Health held its 6th. annual workshop on 4th. October 2016. Representatives from the Spanish NRL (Dr. Pilar Fernandez Somalo) and from the Czech NRL (MVDr. Martin Pijacek) were invited to present their activities and the honey bee health status in their respective countries. Participants exchanged on the small hive beetle infestation in Italy through the presentation of Dr. Franco Mutinelli (from the Italian NRL). Dr. Marc Schäfer (from the German NRL) presented an...

Note prepared by the EU RL for Honeybee Health (Laboratory of  Anses Sophia Antipolis) Updated news (29th. November 2016) To see the details of the outbreaks observed in 2015, please click here. 

An updated version of the guidelines for the surveillance of Aethina tumida infestation is now available in free access here. This document has been updated by the EURL in collaboration with the NRLs from Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Germany and United Kingdom considering the feedbacks from the surveillance in Italy. We thank all the people who participated to the writing of these guidelines.

  The first occurrence of the small hive beetle has been observed in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 1st. March 2015. The beetle was suspected in 46 bee hives. Beetle specimens were sent to the University of São Paulo for taxonomic identification on May 2015. Preliminary results were communicated to the official veterinary service on December 2015. Beetles were sent to the Biological Institute of São Paulo which confirmed the entomological identification of Aethina tumida on 16th...

Note prepared by the EU RL for Honeybee Health (Laboratory of  Anses Sophia Antipolis)   Updated news (29th. December 2015)   This article will no longer be updated. A new article on the surveillance of Aethina tumida in Italy in 2016 has been created here.   To see the details of the outbreaks observed in 2014 and the state of play of the situation early 2015, please click here.       

One proficiency-test will be organized by the EU RL in 2016. It will follow the proficiency test performed in 2015 and it will aim at evaluating the specificity of the real-time RT-PCR method for the detection and quantification of the chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV) in bees. More information related to the time schedule will come soon.

Additional data editing were performed on the EPILOBEE data leading to new calculations. Thus, a revised version of the EPILOBEE 2012-2014 report with corrected figures was produced. You can check out this new document, available on the European Commission website (click here).