Honeybee Conservation centers in Western Europe: an innovative strategy using sustainable beekeeping to reduce honeybee decline

Apis mellifera is subdivided into at least 26 physiologically, behaviourally and morphologically distinct subspecies. As an agronomical species of interest, the natural distribution of honeybee subspecies has been disturbed for many decades by beekeeping activities, particularly because of international trade of honeybees. These movements were particularly amplified this last decade due to livestock rebuilding to counter the effects of colony losses. An interesting assumption is that current honeybee declines observed in European apiaries can be caused by commercial and European trades of honeybees by (i) the introduction (for their apicultural traits) of non- adapted and artificially maintained colonies, and (ii) the spread of allochtone and invasive pathogens carried by allochtones bees. Genetic surveys have demonstrated that some populations of honeybee subspecies are adapted to local climate and flora. Those populations thus constitute particularly interesting populations to study and preserve in a context of sustainable beekeeping. BEEHOPE, our BioDIVERSA ERANET funded project, is to set up, according to a North/South gradient, genetic conservatories of original naturally distributed honeybee populations. These honeybee conservation areas will have as missions: (i) to characterize the genetic and eco-ethologic diversity of honeybees from the West-Mediterranean lineage, (ii) to preserve the genetic diversity of those populations, (iii) to constitute a reserve of diversity usable by the honeybee industry and by beekeepers, (iv) to study the impact of the domesticated honeybee in the maintenance of local floristic diversity, and (v) to be able to use the honeybee as a bio-collector and as a biological indicator of environmental quality