World Bee Day

  Bees and other pollinators are essential to our existence. Thanks to the over 20 000 bee species and various other wild pollinators, plants that form the basis of our diets can be produced. Pollinators help agriculture and biodiversity to flourish. Yet, habitat loss and several  unsustainable farming practices are threatening the health and survival of different species of pollinators. The celebration of World Bee Day on May 20th presents an opportunity to step up our efforts to protect bees and other pollinators . By doing so, we can mitigate risks to food security and nutrition, agricultural livelihoods, biodiversity and the environment.  Let the World Bee Day 2025 guide inspire you to take action and be a part of the buzz!

Besides Apis Mellifera , there are other 11 known honeybees species and hundreds of stingless bees. In many cases, these bees have spiritual and cultural significance, medicinal purposes or are used as environmental indicators. Pollinators such as bees, birds and bats, pollinate 87 leading food crops worldwide. Around 10 percent of the total economic value of agricultural output for human food is dependent on insect pollination. About three quarters of the food we eat depend, at least in part, on pollinators. Almost 90 percent of the world’s flowering wild plants (approximately 308 000 species) depend, to varying degrees, on pollinators for their reproduction. Over 200 000 species of animals are pollinators; the vast majority of them are wild and include more than 20 000 species of bees. Pollination enables the production of an abundance of diverse and nutritious fruits, vegetables, and nut species. Protecting bees and other pollinators is one of the pillars of the transformative chang...

  As far as beekeepers are concerned, throughout the 20th century the other man’s grass was always greener – bees in other countries were viewed as more prolific, gentler, more disease resistant, less prone to swarming, more yellow, blacker. Indeed many beekeepers still think this way, and this has led 1 Bradbear, 2005. Bees and their role in forest livelihoods to the disasters of recent years, when races of bees, or diseases and parasites of honeybees have been spread around the world with serious consequences for the beekeeping industries , and indigenous populations of bees, in many countries. This has been caused entirely by the movement of honeybee colonies by man. For example, the mite Varroa destructor is a ‘natural’ parasite of Asian honeybees that survive in the presence of the mite . However, when particular races of the mite are introduced to European Apis mellifera honeybees (the bee used for beekeeping in most industrialized countries), the whole colony will be ki...

  Globalisation is taking place in beekeeping , as in every other sector. Beekeeping with European races of honeybees , plus all associated technology, is being spread around the world. The consequences of competition between introduced (exotic) honeybees and indigenous honeybee species and races are unknown.

 If we look at the many colourful and different looking flowers, we should not forget that they have developed as an adaptation for the bees and other pollinators, and not to please humans! Bees and most flowering plants have developed a complex interdependence during millions of years. An estimated 80 percent of flowering plants are entomophilous i.e. depending more or less on insect pollination to be able to reproduce, and it is estimated that half of the pollinators of tropical plants are bees. The efficiency of honeybees is due to their great numbers, their physique and their behaviour of foraging on only one plant species at one time. The bees have to find their food in flowers. The food can be nectar or pollen. Nectar is produced to attract the bees. Pollen is also attracting the bees, but it has another function too: it is produced to ensure the next generation of plants. Bee pollinated flowers have evolved in such a way that a visiting bee has to brush against the flower’s ...

  Some species of plants and bees have developed a close interdependence in connection withpollination . Such a mutual adaptation and interdependence between a plant and pollinator is a result of a long and intimate co-evolutionary relationship. The pollinating bees of the Brazil nut tree Bertholletia excelsa is an illustrative example of such a relationship and its economic importance. The Brazil nut tree grows wild in the Amazon Forest. Brazil nuts are one of the economically most important wild products growing trees in the area, with more than 50 000 tonnes of the nuts exported from Brazil every year. The Brazil nut trees cannot be grown in plantations, because they need to be pollinated by one special bee species, the small shining Euglossa bee. This bee is dependent on the presence of an orchid species that is found only in the rain forest . They are also the only pollinators for a number of orchids in the forest. In some species of Euglossa, the male bee collects some sce...