Honeybee colony losses
Over the years, honeybee health has become a major concern, colony losses that were reported by beekeepers were gathered in databases that will provide more acurate solutions for the future. – Read more …
EU efforts for bee health
Bee health depends on many factors. This is why EU actions cover several policy areas including: beekeeping and agriculture; environment and research; pesticides; veterinary issues; surveillance measures. Read more…
Pesticides and bees
Insecticides are, by their nature, toxic to bees. However, their use should still be possible if exposure does not occur or is minimised to levels which do not generate harmful effects. Read more …
European Red List of Bees
Many ecosystems arround the world are now so heavily degraded that their ability to deliver valuable ecosystem services has been drastically reduced, being necessarily biodiversity solutions. Read more …
European Food Safety Authority - Bee Health
Bees are critically important in the environment, sustaining biodiversity by providing essential pollination for a wide range of crops and wild plants. Read more …
Fact Sheet: Bees
Without bees, many of the world’s most important crops would fail and directly affect the food supply of humans and countless other species. Read more …
Why are the bees important?
To explain a bees life it would be necessary a deep understanding of their necessity. It is believed that the honey bee was also originated in Africa, like first human beings, and later spread across northern Europe, India, and China.
The honey-bee relationship with humans can be traced back to the dawn of humankind when early people ‘stole’ honey from wild bee nests. Bees and flowering plants evolved with each other. This evolutionary symbiotic relationship is the most important reason why our world looks like it does today… and still, the vital work of bees goes on.
As people growth rate rises on Earth, the bees population is in decline and everybody is trying to prevent this situation that is evolving on a devastating path for humankind. If we take into consideration some appreciation about bees impact on the earth, on our lives, it can be said that:
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live”. (Maurice Maeterlinck – The Life of the Bee, 1901)
or
“Remove the bee from the earth, and at the same stroke you remove at least one hundred thousand plants that will not survive.” (Albert Einstein)