[Pollinator] Fewer Honey Bee Colonies and Beekeepers Throughout Europe

[Ladadams at aol.com]

Fewer Honey Bee Colonies and Beekeepers Throughout  Europe
 
ScienceDaily (Jan. 28, 2010) — The number of  bee colonies in Central 
Europe has decreased over recent decades. In fact, the  number of beekeepers has 
been declining in the whole of Europe since 1985. This  is the result of a 
study that has now been published by the International Bee  Research 
Association, which for the first time has provided an overview of the  problem of 
bee colony decline at the European level. 
Until now there had only been the reports from individual countries  
available. As other pollinators such as wild bees and hoverflies are also in  
decline, this could be a potential danger for pollinator services, on which many 
 arable crops depend, according to what an international team of scientists 
have  written in a special edition of the Journal of Apicultural  Research. 
In their investigation the researchers analysed data that was available 
from  national beekeeper magazines and national reports, in order to calculate 
the  total number of bee colonies and beekeepers. In this way the number of 
bee  colonies between 1965 and 1985 could be reconstructed for 14 European 
countries  and for 18 European countries between 1985 and 2005. The 
compilation provides us  with a preliminary overview of the situation in Europe. It 
is not complete  however, since for example France, Spain and some Eastern 
European EU countries  are missing from it, as no suitable data could be 
procured for them. While in  Europe and the USA the number of bee colonies has 
declined, the number on a  worldwide scale is thought to have increased by 
approximately 45 percent over  the last 50 years according to a 2009 report 
from the Food and Agricultural  Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 
Unfortunately however this finding is  of little use to the agrarian economy in 
Europe and the USA, for although honey  can be imported as a product of the 
bees, this is not the case for the service  provided by the bees -- namely 
pollination. 
According to the analysis, the number of bee colonies has already been on 
the  decline in Central and Western Europe since 1965. Since 1985 this trend 
has also  become apparent in countries such as the Czech Republic, Norway, 
the Slovak  Republic and Sweden. By comparison, in the South of Europe 
(Greece, Italy and  Portugal) the number of bee colonies increased between 1965 
and 2005. In  contrast however, the number of beekeepers decreased in all of 
the countries  that were investigated. 
Scientists assume the cause for this to be the social and economic changes  
over recent decades. Rising incomes of the rural population made other  
sugar-based products affordable, the replacement of jobs by machines in  
agriculture speeded up the rural exodus to urban regions and thus beekeeping as  a 
hobby lost its attractiveness. "The price of treating bee diseases has  
increased to the extent that the cost of treatments may equal or exceed the  
income from a colony for an entire year, thus making it uneconomic to keep 
bees  on a small scale," explains Dr. Simon G. Potts of the University of 
Reading in  England. "Moreover, the effort for treating disease, in particular V. 
 destructor, has probably also reduced the attractiveness of beekeeping as 
a  hobby." 
Through the investigation, the mystery of bee losses has by no means been  
solved, emphasize the scientists, who were however able to add another piece 
to  the puzzle. Furthermore, the data would have to be interpreted very 
carefully  because of the very different evaluation methods in individual 
countries. "With  the limited evidence available it is neither possible to 
identify the actual  driver of honey bee losses in Europe nor to give a complete 
answer on the trends  for colonies and beekeepers. This obviously creates an 
urgent demand for a  standardization of evaluation methods, especially on 
colony numbers. Such  harmonized reliable methods will be the obvious backbone 
for any research to  understand and mitigate honey bee colony losses," adds 
Dr. Josef Settele from  the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research 
(UFZ). 
The loss of pollinators such as bees, bumble bees and butterflies is one of 
 the four pillars of the EU project ALARM. ALARM stands for "Assessing 
Large  scale environmental Risks for biodiversity with tested Methods" and was 
the  largest research project of the European Union in the field of 
biodiversity. 
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____________________________________
Story Source: 
Adapted from materials provided by _Helmholtz Association of German 
Research Centres_ (http://www.helmholtz.de/) , via _EurekAlert!_ 
(http://www.eurekalert.org/) ,  a service of AAAS.


 





Laurie Davies Adams
Executive  Director
Pollinator Partnership 
423 Washington Street, 5th  floor
San Francisco, CA  94111
415-362-1137
LDA at pollinator.org

_www.pollinator.org_ (http://www.pollinator.org/) 

_www.nappc.org_ (http://www.nappc.org/) 

National Pollinator Week is June 21-27, 2010. 
Beecome  involved at _www.pollinator.org_ (http://www.pollinator.org/) 
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