Scientists at the University of Warwick have modelled an
outbreak of the bee infection American foulbrood in Jersey, using a technique
which could be applied to other honeybee diseases such as European foulbrood
and the Varroa parasite.
As well as modelling how bee infections spread, the method
also allows scientists to simulate various disease control interventions in
order to measure their efficacy.
The researchers used two sets of data gathered two months
apart during an outbreak of American foulbrood in Jersey in the summer of 2010.
This provided two ‘snapshots’ of the disease from which they attempted to
reconstruct the entire epidemic.