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Swedish bees board flight to Greenland

Some 500,000 bees from northern Sweden checked into a flight bound for Greenland on Wednesday where they are destined to start a new life, contributing to the very exclusive local honey production.

Swedish bees board flight to Greenland

“The bees will be a complement to the agricultural production on the island, which is sheep farming. The Greenland honey is very exclusive and sold expensively in small jars,” said beekeeper Janne Westerlund, who is supplying the bees to Greenland, to local paper Västerbottenskuriren (VK).

The flight left Umeå airport in the north of Sweden just before 1pm on Wednesday and arrived in Narsarsuaq, in southern Greenland via Stockholm Arlanda and Kastrup airport, Denmark.

Exporting bees, however, is not an easy task. According to Westerlund there is a lot of paperwork that needs to be filled in for custom officials and the bees have to be vetted both by a veterinary surgeon and the national bee inspectors.

But despite the cold climate in Greenland, the bees flourish there, according to Westerlund.

“The bees do rather well in Greenland, despite the fact that the hives can be covered with several metres of snow at times, not in the least because of Greenland flowers being especially rich in nectar,” he told the paper.

And this also makes for good honey. How good, however, Westerlund can’t vouch for. He has never tasted it.

“I haven’t actually. I can’t afford it,” he told the paper.

TT/Rebecca Martin

twitter.com/thelocalsweden

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