## 4 Discussion  
Beekeepers in Europe and in the Americas were most likely to participate in this survey compared to beekeepers in other areas of the world. Reasons for the low participation in some regions likely include more limited internet access or lower connections with other beekeepers (i.e., fewer numbers of beekeepers' associations) and probably linked with a lesser ability to disseminate the survey in some areas, especially in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Further studies should investigate the most commonly used channels by beekeepers in different regions of the world to increase the number of respondents. The majority of American (85.6%) and European beekeepers (83.9%) that took part in the survey did not consider themselves professionals, managing between 1 and 10 bee colonies. Even if there is no internationally accepted definition of both these categories (professional and hobbyist beekeepers), we believe that the 1 to 10 colony category falls clearly into the definition of \"hobby beekeeper\", considering the world average honey production of 20 kg/modern beehives per annum cited in [PERSON] and [PERSON] [30]. In each continent, a similar percentage of beekeepers produced hive products for themselves (more than 50%), while about 40% produced products for sale. In addition, most beekeepers (65.3% in the Americas and 58.4% in Europe) had 0-9 years of experience and did not move colonies throughout the years. This is also likely reflective of the low percentage of professional beekeepers in both regions (14.4% in the Americas and 16.4% in Europe), considering that migratory beekeeping is a typical activity for professional beekeepers. Our results are consistent with others [28; 31] who find that apiculture is a hobby for the overwhelming majority of the beekeepers in the Americas and in Europe and is not likely a primary source of income; future research should examine whether this is the case in other countries and regions. Although beekeeping is not limited to a single sex or age group, the ratio of males to females was about 2:1 in each continent analyzed, and most of the respondents were in the 50-69 age range. This is consistent with the age and gender demographics of beekeepers across multiple countries [28; 32; 33; 34]. The role of women in beekeeping is important and is a possible method of empowering rural women. Even so, beekeeping is a socio-economic activity practiced by both women and men all around the world. Many studies investigated the socio-cultural factors and the influence of gender roles, which affect women's participation in beekeeping [35; 36], and clearly this is an area ripe for further exploration. Although we observe slight differences in the number of inspections among American (51.7%; from 2 to 3 times per month) and European beekeepers (38.9%; 4 times per month), in both regions, beekeeper indicate the importance of providing frequent and regular inspections of the hives [37] during the active season. Even though the varroa mite was usually well known to both American and European beekeepers, unfortunately, there is still a small proportion of beekeepers (1.4% in the Americas and 4.2% in Europe) who do not visit their colonies at all, increasing the risk of spreading honey bee diseases. Further, the beekeepers indicated a number of control measures were useful in combating varroa (Table 2), which was consistent with the recommendations from the team of experts that identified these measures in a previous study [23] as part of the EU SUSAN BPRACTICES project. The control measure \"providing sufficient numbers of healthy spare bees at the right time\" was considered the worst strategy of choice (low relevance \(<1\)) among beekeepers, in addition to the practice \"treat only the varroa affected hives\". This suggests that beekeepers do not find these viable options and could suggest reevaluating the list of biosecurity measures for varroa management.