Honey, beekeepers in crisis across Europe because of climate change
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
For European beekeepers, 2019 will be remembered as a black year. Honey producers' associations say: “It's climate change's fault”.
Honey, beekeepers in crisis across Europe because of climate change
For European beekeepers, 2019 will be remembered as a black year. Honey producers' associations say: “It's climate change's fault”.
Bees represent links in the food chain that are as important as they are fragile. Human activities, starting with the use of pesticides, have been threatening this essential species for years. But 2019 in particular is proving to be a black year for beekeepers. And not solely because of the chemical products harmful to insects. What has made honey production especially poor this year is, above all, the consequences of climate change.
Frutta e miele in ginocchio: Coldiretti chiede lo stato di crisi alla Regione ift.tt/2npfq6o
A 41 per cent drop in the harvest in Italy
Across Europe, but particularly in France and Italy, the sector reports having recorded the worst harvests in history. In our country, Coldiretti spoke of "a 41 per cent drop compared to the 23,300 tonnes of 2018". With a projected fall in revenue of 73 million euros. Meanwhile in France, the national beekeepers' union (Unaf) explained that the current season "should be the worst ever", with "fewer than nine thousand tonnes" harvested. That represents a quarter of what was typically achieved in the 1990s.
2019, indeed, "was characterised – Coldiretti continues – by particularly dry early months of the year, followed by a cold and wet May, a scorching June and a July marked by storms and thunderstorms with an average of more than 10 severe hailstorms per day and as many as 9 tornadoes, based on the European Severe Weather Database Eswd. The suffering of bees is one of the effects of ongoing climate change, which is disrupting nature and manifesting itself through an ever higher frequency of extreme events with seasonal shifts, brief and intense rainfall and the rapid switch from sunshine to bad weather".
#cronaca Liguria - Apicoltura, annata disastrosa per la produzione di miele in Liguria: Coldiretti chiede lo stato di calamità ift.tt/2ma6LE2
In Italy, hundreds of extreme weather events were in fact recorded: up 56 per cent compared to 2018. Likewise, in Romania – the country that produces the majority of European honey – the harvest at the end of 2019 is expected to fall below the average of recent years (which stood at 25,000 tonnes). Furthermore, in Spain – which holds the continental record in terms of the number of hives on its territory – honey production has been struggling since 2015.
In France, extreme heat melted hives. And bees killed the males…
Just as in the case of Coldiretti, in France Unaf spoke of a "climate catastrophe" to explain the drop in production. It is enough to consider that the exceptional heatwaves that struck the south of the European country in June and July were so intense as to have melted some hives, as reported by the French daily 20 Minutes.
"Pourquoi la récolte de miel français sera catastrophique en 2019" avec une itw de Gilles Lanio, président de l'UNAF bfmtv.com/economie/pourq… via @BFM_eco
But that is not all. The president of Unaf, Gilles Lanio, also reported a further, potentially dramatic consequence. In an attempt to safeguard the hives, "the bees reacted by killing all the males, in order to eliminate mouths to feed". Now, precisely because of the scarcity of specimens with which to mate, there is a risk of having "a deficit of fertilised queen bees" next spring.