Meetings of beekeeping researchers in Italy
20.02.2025
From 3 to 8 February 2025, doc. Róbert Chlebo from the Institute of Animal Husbandry participated in the meetings of the apidology consortium COLOSS. These were 3 consecutive meetings of the working groups Monitoring (monitoring of winter bee colony losses), B-Rap (cooperation between beekeeping research and practice, extension service) and Nutri (bee colony nutrition, bee feeds evaluation).
The meetings took place at the premises of the State Veterinary Institute in the Italian city of Legnaro near Padua.
The first workshop focused on monitoring of winter bee colony losses. Results from the previous season and their publication were evaluated. The possibilities of submitting a joint research project were discussed. Finally, the questions in the questionnaire on bee colony losses during the autumn and winter of 2024/2025 were updated.
The second workshop was dedicated to the topic of information transfer between beekeeping research and practice. The main discussion topic was the misleading information obtained by beekeepers through social networks and the possibility of using artificial intelligence tools in beekeeping consultancy.
The last hybrid working meeting was a meeting of the Nutri group, dedicated to honeybees nutrition. In the morning, lectures on bee colony nutrition were given by online participants from non-European countries, in the afternoon by the present participants in two blocks: bee pasture sources and bee colony feeding. A representative from the SUA gave a lecture on the topic "Assortment and evaluation of carbohydrate feeds for bees".
