Minimising honey bee colony losses requires healthy colonies. An important contributor to maintaining good colony health and vitality is effective colony management, but individual beekeepers vary greatly in their knowledge and application of optimal management practices. Beekeepers become knowledgeable through the acquisition of reliable information, but whilst there are many available information sources for the beekeepers, these vary greatly in quality. The COLOSS B-RAP (Bridging Research and Practice) group, a Core Project of the COLOSS (prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes) honey bee research association, studies the means for the effective transfer of the latest beekeeping knowledge from scientists and extension workers to practising beekeepers. A purpose- designed questionnaire was used in an international online survey, translated and published by volunteer national coordinators, to collect data on the information sources preferred and most used by the beekeepers, in order to understand the best means for communication and beekeeping education. The study covered 71 countries and received 11,351 responses, mainly from Europe, Asia, North America and Latin America. It was found that knowledge acquisition differed significantly according to various beekeeper characteristics, with the most influential factors being continent, beekeeper age, beekeeping experience and beekeeping education. The results demonstrate the necessity for researchers and beekeeping advisors to diversify their usage of information channels so that a majority of the beekeeping community can access important new bee research results.