How Ireland's wild honey bees are surviving without help – University of Galway leads EU Research
Once thought extinct in the wild, native Irish honey bees are showing remarkable resilience — now scientists from Galway are leading a Europe-wide study to understand how.
University of Galway is leading an international research project to uncover how wild honey bee colonies survive and thrive in the wild across Europe.
Once thought to be extinct in the wild, recent independent research has revealed that free-living honey bees exist in some parts of Europe, including Ireland, although much is still unknown about their ability to survive in the wild.
The project, entitled FREE-B, seeks to tackle the knowledge gap by investigating the various factors that bolster survival of these colonies such as their environment, biology and behaviour.
As part of the project, researchers from Ireland, France, Poland, Portugal and Sweden will collaborate to explore the survival tactics of free-living honeybees.
Teams from the five European countries will search for nest sites in collaboration with citizen scientists and the international coalition Honey Bee Watch, with a special focus on forested and remote areas.
In addition to gathering information about the colonies, such as location, nest type, and density, they will also conduct regular monitoring of nests to track survival rates while analysing adaptation and diversity within various environments across the studied areas.
Professor Grace McCormack of the School of Natural Sciences at University of Galway believes the outlook looks promising, saying: 'We have been monitoring free-living honey bee colonies across the island of Ireland since 2015 and have found excellent overwintering survival in this group.
'There is a high proportion of pure native Irish honey bee in the wild population and our research so far suggests that they do not have any higher levels of pests or diseases than managed colonies. Being well adapted to local conditions they may hold key secrets that could improve apiculture in Ireland.
'Indeed, many beekeepers already rely on wild colonies to bolster their beekeeping, particularly beekeepers who no longer use chemicals to treat for the parasitic varroa mite.
'We look forward to extending our research via FREE-B to investigate broader patterns of survival in this key group across different latitudes and climates, to diving deeper to understand what goes on in a wild nest throughout the season, and to sharing exciting research outputs with beekeepers.'
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