Be sure to attend the APIdays® 12th edition: the national days for bees and pollinators, on June 17-18-19, 2021.
” Notwithstanding the current health crisis, Apidays® offers a wide range of activities, educational and entertaining workshops, exhibitions and screenings, all free of charge, in 60 partner sites over three days. This major festival has become a can’t-miss national event in just a few years.
The National Union of French Beekeeping and hundreds of French beekeepers are joining forces once again, with arrangements adapted to the health crisis, in nearly 60 sites in France, the French overseas territories and Monaco. The theme of this new edition: « The bees need to be protected, now more than ever! »
Bees and wild pollinators are threatened. Action must be taken! The danger is real: return of neonicotinoids (reauthorization until 2023 of the use of neonicotinoid insecticides for beet despite the ban in France since 2018), proliferation of the Asian hornet across the country, reduced honey resources, diseases and climate change (freezing weather in Spring 2021, repeated heat waves and drought …)
The facts speak for themselves. Every year in France nearly 30% of the colonies disappear, and the national production of honey went from 33,000 tons in 1995 to about 18,000 to 20,000 tons in 2020, which was a very good year nonetheless. More than 32 000 tons are imported from all over the world…
Pollinators are essential to the balance of our ecosystems and our agriculture, and more broadly to our food safety. Nearly 84% of cultivated species (fruits, vegetables, fodder legumes, oil plants such as rapeseed or cocoa…) depend on pollinators and more particularly, on bees.
More than 35% of what we eat depends on the silent work of bees and wild pollinators. It would be hard to think of a single meal in which bees would not be associated with their pollinating activities. More than 2,500 species of bees (domestic, xylocopes, osmies…) are involved in pollination in Europe.
Protecting bees also means protecting the humankind. The next edition of APIdays® will stress the importance of taking action to protect bees and pollinators.
