Biotechnical Control of in Honey Bee Colonies: A Trade-Off between Sustainable Beekeeping and Profitability?

Beekeeping faces several challenges, such as the mite. Few studies have measured the economic performance of farms in relation to the practices used for control. Our study analyzed various biotechniques (total brood removal, TBR; queen caging, QC; royal cell insertion, CI) and other methods (chemical treatments, CT; thymol use, THY) adopted by Italian beekeepers to show whether the adoption of biotechniques leads to farm profitability or a necessary trade-off between sustainability and profitability.