## 4 Discussion
However, a small proportion of beekeepers (11%of hobby and 15% of professionals) seem to give more relevance to planned treatments rather than checking the infestation levels. A total of 74.9 % of hobby and 91.7% of professional beekeepers declared that they recognize the clinical signs of AFB and EFB and do not rely on laboratory tests for confirmation or differential diagnosis. This is probably to avoid the consequences deriving from the communication of these notifiable diseases to the relevant authorities. European beekeepers consider that the shook swarm technique is the best method to manage EFB. Similarly, almost half of hobby beekeepers also use the shook swarm technique for AFB. The destruction of the hives by burning is the strategy of choice among professional beekeepers in case of AFB. Indeed, AFB is a much more severe disease than EFB. The shook swarm technique is quite a time-consuming, labor-intensive technique that may be associated with the possibility of relapses (depending on the season and the strength of the colonies), especially in case of AFB. The shook swarm represents the preferred control method for hobby beekeepers, which is probably due to the lower number of hives they have to manage and the consequent higher amount of time they have to invest in curing each colony compared to professional beekeepers. Less than 10% of beekeepers, especially professionals, consider the application of antibiotics, alone or in combination with the shook swarm technique, a valid method for the control of these bacterial diseases. The use of antibiotics is considered by most beekeepers as the worst option for managing both foulbrood diseases. This is probably for several reasons: (1) the absence of antibiotics specifically registered for honey bees; (2) the use of antibiotics registered for other animals is only allowed under the application of the cascade system with the direct involvement of a veterinarian; (3) frequent relapses after treatment; and (4) the need for a withdrawal period to avoid the risk of residues in honey [22; 23; 24; 25]. The existence of a relevant proportion of beekeepers that still do not know how to manage AFB and EFB could be taken into consideration when addressing training programs for European beekeepers. VMPs against Varroa are considered only partially effective by 50% of hobby beekeepers and not effective at all by 15.2% and 19.3% of hobby and professional beekeepers, respectively. This phenomenon might be partially explained by the development of acaricide resistance in _V. destructor_ or by the complexity that can exist in the proper application of varroacide treatments. Acaricide resistance might be induced by the abuse of treatments (e.g., too high dosage or frequency of applications) or by the practice of illegal treatments (e.g., with home-made preparations containing pesticide treatments). In fact, a small proportion of beekeepers (13.6% of hobbyists and 10.2% of professionals) never buy veterinary products but completely rely on illegal, homemade treatments, which is forbidden under current EU legislation. Unfortunately, in the European Union (EU) most of the medicines registered for honey bees are still sold without any veterinary prescription, making their traceability extremely difficult. Moreover, many of the registered products are not easy to use (e.g., reconstituting medicinal solutions starting from powders, or needing specific administration procedures such as sublimation, etc. ), or they need particular conditions (e.g., absence of brood, consideration of external temperatures) to reach their optimum efficacy. The lack of efficacy of treatments was mainly ascribed to fluvalinate and thymol (Figure 5). Long-term application of synthetic miticides may result in the development of resistance [26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31]. Thymol resistance is rarely reported in the scientific literature on bees [32] even though it is undeniable that several other factors might interfere with its final efficacy [33; 34].