Bee health

Bee health

Bee health Beekeeping is an ancient tradition, and honey bees have been kept in Europe for several millennia. Bees are critically important in the environment, sustaining biodiversity by providing essential pollination for a wide range of crops and wild plants. They contribute to human wealth and wellbeing directly through the production of honey and other food and feed supplies such as: pollen, wax for food processing, propolis in food technology, and royal jelly as a dietary supplement and ingredient in the food.

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Bee health. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that of the 100 crop species that provide 90% of food worldwide, 71 are pollinated by bees. The majority of crops grown in the European Union depend on insect pollination. Beyond the essential value of pollination to maintaining biodiversity, the global annual monetary value of pollination has been estimated at hundreds of billions of euros.

In view of the important ecological and economic value of bees, there is a need to monitor and maintain healthy bee stocks, not just locally or nationally, but globally. Bee health.

Over the past 10 to 15 years, beekeepers have been reporting unusual weakening of bee numbers and colony losses, particularly in Western European countries including France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

No single cause of declining bee numbers has been identified. However, several possible contributing factors have been suggested, acting in combination or separately. Bee health. These include the effects of intensive agriculture and pesticide use, starvation and poor bee nutrition, viruses, attacks by pathogens and invasive species – such as the Varroa mite (Varroa destructor), the Asian hornet (Vespa velutina), and the small hive beetle Aethina tumida and environmental changes (e.g. habitat fragmentation and loss).

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Bee health. In 2018 the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety asked EFSA to deliver a scientific opinion on “A holistic approach for the risk assessment of multiple stressors in honey bees” that considers not only cumulative and synergistic effects of pesticides but also issues related to bees' genetic variety, pathogens, bee management practices and colony environment. The opinion will also support the EU Bee Partnership initiative by providing guidance on collecting and sharing harmonised data.