THE REAL REASON FOR THE DISAPPEARANCE OF BEES

Some breeds of bees are in trouble. For our domestic bee, which lives in society, the swarms tend to disappear. The causes are numerous and complex. However, if we all know the problems linked to pesticides (regent and gaucho for example), other causes are just as important, even if they benefit from much less communication.

Some studies have shown that by positioning a telephone at the exit of the hives, the bees cannot find their way back and therefore cannot bring food (essentially pollen and nectar) back into the hive. Which proves that our “TV” waves do have an impact on the life and survival of swarms.

However, there is certainly more serious... firstly, the massive consolidation of the 70s caused the disappearance of many hedges and seriously damaged our biodiversity, where our bees found borage, birch, chestnut, hazel, hawthorn, buckthorn. , sunflower, poppy, etc., they now only have at their disposal a plot of 200 hectares of corn.

Whatever dish we offer you, if it is served to you morning, noon and evening, there is a good chance that you will become ill quickly... The same goes for our friends... A few simple actions can help our swarms : do not mow systematically during the flowering period, let the hedges grow a little, let's give packets of seeds to our schools to teach our children the importance of biodiversity, and to allow them to have an active role in safeguarding of our bees by sowing the bags... These simple actions are not suggested, but they can help to stop the mortality curve of our swarms.

BUT, if we had to choose only one cause, we would neither talk about biodiversity, nor telephones, nor pesticides… we would not speak about our completely unsuitable hive models (we will perhaps come back to this later). another day!), we wouldn't even talk about the Asian hornet, because the situation is a little more complex...

The bee has existed for at least 120 million years, so it lived alongside dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period, and survived all the climatological changes of this period (we now think that it appeared following the anoxia of the oceans ), how did the Asian hornet become such a killer? and how have the bee and he been able to coexist until now in Asia?

It would seem that one of the characteristics of the bee is to train, to teach, to educate its fellow bees by making them benefit from the experience acquired during these 120 million years of existence. So she learned to defend herself. However, this teaching is only transmitted through the race of the individual. However, in Western Europe, a common practice for several decades has been to cross two breeds of bees (a black bee with a Caucasian one for example), the hybrid bee thus obtained does not have the necessary knowledge to survive potential predators. , it is moreover, completely unadapted to its environment (unlike the one it replaces) and disappears little by little... This hybridization is, obviously, intended to obtain a less aggressive and more hardworking bee in order to obtain a better profitability!

The problem is nevertheless real, beekeepers cannot make a living from their work (for some, it is a passion, for others, hard work) by selling honey to wholesalers at ridiculously low prices, and these wholesalers - there, cannot survive by increasing prices with retailers, because they know that beyond a certain price, honey will not sell.

Ultimately, it is because we, consumers, are looking for the lowest price that the entire chain is weakened, and, in this case, it is the bee which is the big victim.

Let's refuse to buy honey at indecent prices at the bottom of the supermarket shelves (in any case, most are cut, diluted and can no longer be considered honey).

Let's reduce the intermediaries as much as possible by buying from the beekeeper who will thus live much better.

If possible, let's make sure that this beekeeper's honey does not come from China! (some dishonest beekeepers buy 200 L drums of “honey” in China, put them in pots, and sell it in the village market square…

Above all, let's look for quality in the product, rather than a price that is too low.

Let's stop seeking profit or ease of work to the detriment of the animal, we must put an end to these hybridization practices.

For information, in Cuba, which is one of the rare countries where hybridization has been banned, the number of bees is constantly increasing, and they have more hives than we have in France! We can benefit from these experiences by deciding to heed them.

On the other hand, it is our responsibility to place the hives in places where the nutritional potential is sufficient, do many people think about this? Sometimes, it is necessary to limit the number of hives on an apiary, because our friends will not be able to feed themselves sufficiently and will exhaust themselves looking for food.

Ultimately the rule is simple: let's put the bee back at the center of beekeeping!

And APICIA then, in all of this… what role can we play?

We have great ambition, given the small size of the company... a major project is in the making. We will tell you about it when the time comes!