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The COLOSS BEEBOOK
publication date: Feb 6, 2013
The COLOSS BEEBOOK The COLOSS (Prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes) network aims to explain and prevent massive honey bee colony losses. It was funded by the European Union COST Programme (Action FA0803):
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is an intergovernmental framework for European Cooperation in Science and Technology, allowing the coordination of nationally-funded research on a pan-European level. COST is supported by the EU Research and Technological Development Framework programme. The European Science Foundation as implementing agent of COST provides the COST Office through an EC contract. The Council of the European Union provides the COST Secretariat.
COLOSS does not directly support science, but aims to coordinate international research activities across Europe and worldwide, promoting cooperative approaches and a research programme with a strong focus on the transfer of science into beekeeping practice. COLOSS has a membership of more than 300 scientists, veterinarians, beekeepers and students drawn from 62 countries worldwide. It is chaired by Prof. Peter Neumann of the University of Bern, Switzerland.
The COLOSS BEEBOOK is a unique venture that aims to standardise methods for studying the honey bee. It will be practical manual compiling standard methods in all fields of research on the honey bee, Apis mellifera, and become the definitive, but evolving, research manual, composed of 33 peer-reviewed chapters authored by more than 160 of the world’s leading honey bee experts. Chapters will describe methods for studying honey bee biology, methods for understanding honey bee pests and pathogens, and methods for breeding honey bees. The initial BEEBOOK project will be divided into three volumes: The COLOSS BEEBOOK, Volume I: Standard methods for Apis mellifera research; The COLOSS BEEBOOK, Volume II: Standard methods for Apis mellifera pest and pathogen research; and The COLOSS BEEBOOK, Volume III: Standard methods for Apis mellifera product research.
The COLOSS “BEEBOOK: standard methodologies for Apis mellifera research” edited by Vincent Dietemann of the Swiss Bee Research Centre, Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux , Peter Neumann of the University of Bern, Switzerland, and Jamie Ellis of the University of Florida, USA, will be published both online in the Journal of Apicultural Research and as a hard copy book for use at the laboratory bench.
The article “An update on the COLOSS network and the BEEBOOK: standard methodologies for Apis mellifera research” is available at:
The first group of papers belonging to both Volumes I and II are published here in a Special Issue of the Journal of Apicultural Research as Open Access papers:
These thirteen papers have been written by 98 authors representing 25 different countries, illustrating the unprecedented degree of international collaboration that the crisis in honey bees and the COLOSS network has engendered. The remainder will be published later in 2013, at the same time as the production of Volumes I and II as hard copy. Volume III will follow in 2014. The editors and author team hope that the BEEBOOK will serve as a reference tool for honey bee and other researchers globally. We hope that the honey bee research community will embrace this tool and work to improve it. The online platform is open for everyone to use and further contribute to the development of our research field. For further information see the COLOSS website:
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