Data collection
An information letter on the survey, containing a short description of
the survey, the duration of the questionnaire and the assurance that
responses would be anonymous and confidential was spread in 2 national
languages (French and Dutch) through the University of Liège, the
University of Gent, and the Beekeeping Research and Information Center
(CARI) networks. Due to the absence of a complete sampling frame of
beekeepers, the recruitment email directed participants to an online
survey and asked respondents to forward the survey invitation and the
link to fellow beekeepers. Requests to distribute the survey were also
sent to beekeeping unions, and regional beekeeping schools. We used the
snowball sampling strategy, so respondents are the subset of the target
population who learned about the survey and were willing to participate
(Lupo et al., 2016; Thoms et al., 2018). The online survey was open from
22 December 2017 until 06 February 2018. The survey was edited for
processing and entered into a database. Filters were developed to
exclude from the analysis responses such as questionnaires with
incomplete answers, irrational (e.g. age=3 years), or those that were
obviously duplicate answers. Only beekeepers older than 18 years, with
at least a year of experience and a minimum of 1 hive were considered
for the survey.