Beekeepers are the guardians of honeybee societies. Their knowledge, observations and experiences are all elements that can accelerate the understanding of the environmental factors that might influence both health and survival of honeybees.
Citizen science is an emerging and valuable tool for society not only because it enables two-way engagement between the public and the scientists but also because it can rapidly produce large-scale informative data. COLOSS (COLonies LOSSes) is an international non-profit organization focused on improving the wellbeing of honeybees. One of its main axes is based on the monitoring of colonies losses through a yearly questionnaire distributed to beekeepers across the participating countries.
From 2018 to 2023, Dr Solenn Patalano was the national coordinator of COLOSS for Greece. Anonymous answers to this annual questionnaire have already contributed to assessing the risks faced by beekeepers according to their geographical position but most importantly provide evidence that that Transitioning to Organic Beekeeping Practices Reduces Colony Losses. This was the results of 4 years of citizen scientific survey on 752 Beekeepers which monitored 81,903 hives.
Therefore, this research efforts might influence the decision-making of beekeepers.
If you wish to participate in this citizen science project, contact us on
