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Imagine the summer: no melons, cucumbers, courgettes and aubergines - without delicious strawberries, cherries and apples! Is not inconceivable?
OK, no one wants to imagine this, but unfortunately it is already close to 12 when we bear in mind the high bee mortality.
Beekeepers reported since the late 1990s by a sudden and unexplained decline in bee populations and an unusually high mortality rate of their honeybee peoples.
Even European countries like Switzerland, Germany and Austria are particularly affected.
Honeybees do not just produce honey; as the most important pollinators, they represent the key to food production. A third of our food - vegetables, fruits, nuts,
spices and vegetable oils - are dependent on pollinators. for this we need the help of the bees and bumblebees, wasps, butterflies and flies.
Bees pollinate 71 of the 100 food plants that represent 90 percent of global food production. Only in Europe, more than 4,000 vegetable varieties can be cultivated
only by the decisive contribution of bees. But in recent years more and more of them die, and entire bee colonies will collapse.
If the bees disappear all these fruits disappear. Who would pollinate all these plants without bees? An example from China shows that pollination by hand is
extremely slow and expensive - can Europe afford it?
Meli Malisiova
apiculture | agriculture
