Peter asked on 31 January 2019 if “any Sentinel Apiary ever stopped any pest?”  Good question.

Where have sentinel apiary-type programs been established?  Australia, Canada, Italy, U.K., U.S.  Where else?

In Canada, a Varroa Action Plan was initiated in 1990 to try to prevent the spread of Varroa into and throughout the country. This followed on the first Varroa incursions from Maine to New Brunswick the previous year. Various measures were taken to detect and eradicate Varroa incursions. For example, in 1991, “Manitoba Agriculture placed 60 pheromone lure swarm traps at various locations along the international boundary with North Dakota. A total of 13 swarms were captured and two of these tested positive fro Varroa” (CAPA 1993: 72). As we all know, none of these efforts were successful even in the short-term. A big part of the problem, of course, was the close proximity of Canadian and U.S. apicultural operations along many sections of the international border. Domestic migratory beekeeping, domestic nuc sales and other such traffic in hbs, quarantine breaches, and possible illegal importations exacerbated the problem. Preventing cross-border spread of the pest from the U.S. was impossible. In this case therefore sentinel apiary-type programs (pheromone traps, etc.) did not stop the pest.

Quebec has had a sentinel program on the go for SHB which I believe has been successful in helping to establish quarantine zones and prevent the spread of the pest throughout the province. See Giovenazzo and Boucher (2010) and Ferland (2018).

The UK sentinel program seems to be more of a health monitoring effort.  Have any exotic pests or pathogens been detected in sentinel hives to-date in the UK?

Re. Italy, from what I can find on-line at the moment (not an exhaustive search) it seems that the sentinel apiary program in Italy has been useful in terms of helping government and industry track and at least retard the spread of SBH.  They still have an active eradication program under way. Is the program helping to eradicate SHB?  I don’t believe they had a sentinel apiary program in place when SHB was first detected in the country (see Rivera-Gomis, et al. 2017; and Mutinelli, et al. 2014).

In Australia, as of 2010, the National Sentinel Hive Program (National Bee Pest Surveillance Program) maintained 1-6 hives at 26 ports throughout the country.  They also have pheromone-baited log traps for Asian honey bees in Darwin, etc. and bait hives at ports in Tasmania, South Australia & Victoria (through Australian Quarantine & Inspection Service & individual state departments).
http://beeaware.org.au/archive-news/port-surveillance-system-targets-exotic-bee-pests/   What’s not clear to me with respect to the Australian experience is how early detections of Asian honey bees (Cairns Queensland, 2007) and Varroa jacobsoni (Townsville, Queensland, 2016) were made. Were these pests discovered in sentinel hives or by some other means?  Of course, the surveillance system in Australia (and sentinel apiaries) did not prevent incursions. But has it helped them prevent their spread to other parts of Australia, and provided other benefits re. their management? 

CAPA (Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists). 1993. Proceedings 1993. Annual meeting of CAPA, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, January 10-12, 1993.

Ferland, Julie. 2018. “Avis de vigilance sur le PCR et rapport de l’ACPA sur la mortalité hivernale.” L’Abeille. Federation des apiculteurs du Quebec. 41(1).

Jorge Rivera-Gomis. et al. 2017. “Monitoring of Small Hive Beetle…in Calabria (Italy) from 2014 to 2016: Practical Identification methods.” J. Apic. Sci. Vol. 61 No. 2.
https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/jas/61/2/article-p257.xml 

Mutinelli, et al. 2014. “Detection of Aethina tumida…inn Italy: outbreaks and early reaction measures.”  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3896/IBRA.1.53.5.13

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