The 2025 Australian Colony Loss Survey is open!

The Australian Colony Loss Survey team at the Australian National University (ANU) bring the 2025 Australian Colony Loss Survey questionnaire for a second round. Visit now to have your say and share your 2025 beekeeping experience:

Coloss Website Link

In 2025 Coloss is aiming to have as many beekeepers as possible complete the survey. As in other countries where established, Coloss provides incredible insights to beekeeping challenges over each year, and we are aiming to build a similarly valuable summary of Australia’s industry. 

Using the Coloss data, the whole industry can better understand the most important current issues in Australian beekeeping. What could be more exciting than contributing your experiences to help address critical industry issues and further honeybee research and development in our country. What’s also important to remember is the impact the boarder survey results have on trends over time, that give us a better understanding of general concerns, allowing adaptation of management strategies throughout the changing industry landscape.

The more participants who take the survey, the more information will be available to compare your own experiences with state, national and international information. Importantly the survey can help reveal potential causes of losses and ways to prevent them.

Survey results are completely anonymous, so if you can find 10-15 minutes spare before 1 November 2025 this is your chance to tell industry, government and researchers about the biggest challenges you faced as a beekeeper in 2025.

Together, we can work together to ensure a vibrant Australian honey bee industry for the future. 

The survey is for anyone and everyone who keeps bees anywhere in Australia! 

Take the survey and find out more information about COLOSS on the website!

 

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In case you missed out!

 

The 2024 survey showed us some interesting details:

 

 

 

Takee a sneak peak at the details so far and the promising information that Coloss has the potential to deliver, take a look at the recent AgriFutures Unearthed Podcast to help us to understand the reasons behind Coloss, how beekeepers can better understand that completing the survey is so important and some big comparisons between Australian’s overall losses and the rest of the world!

 

AgriFutures Australia Unearthed Podcast

Episode 2: To bee or not to bee

This episode of AgriFutures new look podcast Unearthed, delves into the hives of Australia’s European honeybee population and the impact of the varroa mite on both the beekeeping industry and the crops that depend on pollination. To help keep track of varroa’s spread, and stay ahead of emerging pests and disease challenges, an early warning system in the form of an annual Colony Loss Survey as been implemented as part of the National Varroa Transition to Management Program, managed by the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council with support from AgriFutures Honey Bee & Pollination Program. Find out what the first Col Loss survey has revealed about the health and threats to our hives on Unearthed: The people changing Australian agriculture.