Table 1. Honey bee colony winter mortalities calculated for the different clusters during EPILOBEE 2012–2014 with the features of each cluster.
| Cluster (number of apiaries) | W1 | W2 | W3 | W4 | W5 | W6 | W7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (n = 403) | (n = 695) | (n = 1324) | (n = 258) | (n = 710) | (n = 944) | (n = 424) | ||
| Winter mortality (%) | 14.04 | 8.11 | 9.50 | 9.74 | 11.46 | 8.66 | 12.57 | |
| Typology | hobby | professional | hobby | Hobby | hobby | part time | part time | |
| Size (apiary & operation) | size 1 | size 3 | size 1 | size 1 | size 1 | size 3 | size 2 | |
| Age of the beekeeper (years) | Over 65 | 30–45 | Over 65 | Less than 30 | 30–45 | 45–65 | 45–65 | |
| Beekeeper background | Training | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Apiarist book | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Qualification | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Member of bkp org | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Bkp experience (years) | 2 to 5 | > 5 | > 5 | < 2 | 2 to 5 | > 5 | > 5 | |
| Cooperative treatment against Varroa | No | No | Yes | NCOR | No | Yes | No | |
| Apiary management | Q & S production | No information | More than 10 | No information | No | More than 10 | ||
| Q & S bought | No information | No | No information | No | No | |||
| Management | No information | Lvstk | No information | Production + HC + Lvstk | Lvstk | |||
| Subspecies | Buckfast / Hybrid / A. m. lig | A. m. iberiensis / A. m. ccm | Buckfast / Hybrid / A. m. lig. | Local bees / A. m. carnica | A. m. iberiensis /A. m. ccm | |||
| Environment | Farmland / Town / Wood | Floral | Farmland / Town / Wood | Diverse | Floral | |||
| Production | Queens | Diverse | Queens | Honey | Diverse | |||
| Colonies merged | NCOR | Yes | NCOR | No | Yes | |||
| Migration | No information | Crops & Diverse | No information | No information | Crops & Diverse | |||
| Clinical disease observed | Varroosis | No clinical disease observed | No clinical disease observed | NCOR | No clinical disease observed | No clinical disease observed | AFB & Varrosis | |
| Health events | No | No | Yes | NCOR | Yes | Yes | No | |
The mortality rates of all the clusters were significantly different from each other (p<0.05) except between the clusters W3 and W4 (p = 0.18). Q & S = queens and swarms; HC = Health Conditions; Lvstk = Livestock; A. m. = Apis melifera; lig. = ligustica; ccm = carpatica, caucasia or macedonia; bkp = beekeeper; org = organisation; size 1 = operation ≤50 colonies and apiary ≤ 20 colonies; size 2 = operation ≤50 and apiary between 21 and 50; size 3 = operation between 51 and 300 and apiary >50; Diverse environment = apiary surroundings composed of two or more different types of environment; Farmland/Town/Wood environment = apiary surroundings either composed of only farmland or only town or only wood environment. Diverse production = honey, queens and pollen. Diverse migration = migration targeted locations mixing crops and wildflowers. NCOR = No Category Over Represented, i.e. for a given variable and a given cluster, among all the categories, none was over represented. No information = no information provided for these apiaries. For further details on clusters and categories, please refer to the text.