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BEES

Bad weather leads to ‘catastrophic’ honey harvest for French beekeepers

Alarmed French beekeepers and farming groups warned on Tuesday of a "catastrophic" honey harvest this year due to adverse weather.

Published: 25 June 2019 14:19 CEST
Bad weather leads to 'catastrophic' honey harvest for French beekeepers
French beekeepers have harvested very little honey so far this year. Photo: AFP
“For honey producers the season risks being catastrophic. Bees are collecting nothing!” French farming union MODEF said in a statement. 
   
“In the hives, there is nothing to eat, beekeepers are having to feed them with syrup because they risk dying from hunger,” added the union, which represents many small farms in honey-producing regions.
 
Henri Clement, secretary-general for the National Union of French Beekeepers (UNAF), said that by June his members had normally harvested 40-50 percent of their annual output, but they had collected very little so far.
   
He blamed the weather after a highly changeable winter which saw frost in many regions damage acacia trees, which bees like, followed by a rainy spring.
 
READ ALSO: 
Photo: AFP
   
“We've had catastrophic weather conditions,” Clement said. “We've been alarmed for a while now about the impact of climate change which is having a major impact on production.”
   
The onset of intense summer heat in France, which could lead to record temperatures being set this week for the month of June, is another source of worry.
   
“We're waiting to see because the season could recover, but the heatwave that is coming could really hit harvests,” Clement added.
   
In recent years, bee populations around the world have been dying off from “colony collapse disorder”, a mysterious scourge blamed on mites, pesticides, virus, fungus, or some combination of these factors.
   
The insects are vital for growing the world's food as they help fertilise crops by transferring pollen from male to female flowers.
   
The European Union is gradually restricting the use of pesticides that are known to be harmful to bees and France introduced even stricter rules in August last year, leading to complaints from some farmers' groups.
   
The pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, are based on the chemical structure of nicotine, and attack the central nervous system of insects.
 
Bees make honey by sucking out nectar from flowers which they then transfer by mouth to other bees inside the hive.
   
The sugary golden liquid is used as a food store by the colony. 

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BEES

100,000 ‘peaceful’ bees exterminated by Danish town

A local municipality in Denmark has taken action after 100,000 bees occupied a sidewalk near a school.

Published: 26 June 2019 14:46 CEST
100,000 'peaceful' bees exterminated by Danish town
Photo: grafvision/Depositphotos

Halsnæs Municipality on the north coast of Zealand sprayed the path in the town of Hundested with insecticide to kill off bees after parents raised concerns over mounds of dirt on the path.

The mounds turned out to be the home of a large nest of bees, Frederiksborg Amts Avis reported.

The species of bee in question was initially reported to be the plasterer bee, which is considered by experts to be a peaceful insect which only stings when provoked. But the municipality said in a statement on Wednesday that it was another variant, the mining bee, which had set up home on the pavement.

The authority decided nonetheless to have the bees removed.

“I don’t think we had any choice,” Jeppe Schmidt, head of the traffic and roads section at Halsnæs Municipality, told Frederiksborg Amts Avis.

Annette Bruun Jensen, an expert on insects and honey bees at the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Science, disagreed with that assessment, saying other options could have been considered.

“Perhaps another strategy involved information and reassurance could have been used,” Jensen said.

“Because this is interesting. You can’t just move (the bees), but you could close off the area so people don’t go there. I think that would be valuable and interesting, and could maybe even be used for school lessons,” she added.

Halsnæs Municipality said it had no information regarding whether anyone had been stung by the bees.

But the local authority responded on Wednesday to suggestions it had been rash in exterminating the bees, following criticism on social media.

“Bees are of great value for our nature and we should therefore always look after them in principle,” Halsnæs Municipality director Martin B. Lindgreen said in a written statement on the municipality’s website.

“But we must also look after our children and adults who risk being stung if they tread or fall on the bees, which might feel threatened and therefore sting,” Lindgreen said.

The authority considered moving the bees but their large number and location, dug into the earth, made this impossible, according to the statement.

Closing off the area would have forced schoolchildren and passers-by to walk in the road, the municipality director said.

“Although we warmly welcome bees to Halsnæs and try to attract more bees and insects, they chose in this instance to nest in a very unfortunate spot, and we felt we had to react,” Lindgreen added.

READ ALSO: Oh… The Danish town that wants to change its name

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