Epizooties et efficacité des processus de décision : un exemple en apiculture

The number of honeybees is strongly decreasing in France, and fighting against their various diseases is an essential tool in the recovery of apiaries. Organized on a general level by the public authorities, this struggle leaves the regional health organization apiculture sections with some flexibility for an adaptation to local conditions. And in the sanitary field, an action is generally only effective if it is collective; especially for bees whose movements cannot be controlled. To this end, these sections must be organized in order to make decisions in a context of a strong heterogeneity of beekeepers (owning one to over a thousand colonies), with diverging interests, differing also from those of the public authority. In the case of the AFB (American Foulbrood) disease, we show here how the choice of a voting rule is a critical success factor. Thus, the decision method itself should be the subject of innovation at least as much as the technical means of fighting against the diseases.