It’s March, and the new honey season is starting. However, old problems with massive poisoning of bees and the negative influence of plant protection agents (PPA) still remain and unlikely to be resolved soon.
Beekeepers do not have effective tools to register bee farms, establish cooperation with farmers, and obtain compensation for losses. Legal procedure of protecting beekepers interests in courts is still complicated.
In 2018, about 46 thousands of bee colonies were destroyed, according to the Association of Beekeepers of Ukraine. This resulted in UAH 138 mln and around 1000 tons of honey with total UAH 45 mln in lossses.
Last year BRDO together with the Association of Beekeepers of Ukraine and the Ministry of Agrarian Policy developed a draft decree “On several issues in beekeeping”. It anticipates the following:
- acceleration of the registration procedure for veterinary and sanitary certificates of bee farms and bee farms in general;
- creation of effective mechanism to deal with mass poisoning of bees;
- establishment of a process of reporting on the use of plant protection agents by agricultural producers.
The adoption of this order is an immediate priority, since the spring farming season has already started.
When returning to its hive, a searcher bee performs a dance, showing other bees, in which direction of the hive there are honey plants. It’s a pity that bees can not warn their colony of places where dangerous PPAs were used.