News about bees and beekeeping from around the world
Number of news: 760 and counting
In an effort to protect dwindling bee populations, the European Parliament has overwhelmingly approved of the creation of special “recovery zones.”
Oxfordshire firm Rowse Honey has put up £100,000 for research into why there is a worldwide shortage of honey bees and into the diseases which are killing them.
Beekeepers swarmed Parliament and the prime minister’s office on Wednesday, demanding more funds for research after the number of Britain’s honey bees dropped by nearly a third in the past year.
Hundreds of members of the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA) from all over the country will deliver a petition to No 10 signed by more than 140,000 members of the public, calling for an immediate increase in research funding – from what the BBKA terms the “paltry” £200,000 currently spent annually on bee health research, to £1.6m annually for the next five years.
Honey exports from Brazil have bounced back from the falling figures observed in July and August this year. The result for the month of September reached US$ 4.9 million. The volume is four times greater than that seen in the same period in 2007 (US$ 1.09 million).
Home-produced honey could run out by Christmas because of a fall in the UK bee population, experts have warned.
Germany’s largest beekeeper and honey producer, Guenter Friedmann, is not merely concerned with the practical aspects beekeeping. He considers the biological and spiritual factors in a dynamic economic system to be equally important facets of his successful business.
There are more than 300 known colonies in the French capital, up from about 250 five years ago, according to the National Beekeepers’ Association. Hives have appeared on the roof of the Opéra Garnier, on balconies and in parks.
The Italian government banned the use of several neonicotinoid pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees.
The Soil Association has urged the government to ban pesticides linked to honeybee deaths around the world.