News from Europe.
Kind regards,
Ghislain De Roeck,
Belgium.
PRESS RELEASE - Brussels, 08.04.2014
European Commission taking the lead to protect bees
The Bee Health conference, organised by the Commission on 7 April (1)
brought together a huge number of people in Brussels interested in bee
health. The stakeholders, beekeepers, farmers, scientists, chemical-industry
and environmental associations, had the opportunity to keep informed on the
Commission work on bees. The actions presented were linked to veterinary
practices and products, pesticides, beekeeping, environment and agriculture
(2).
The results of EPILOBEE (3), a harmonized monitoring on honeybee
mortality, were presented at the conference. The study covers about 32 000
colonies across 17 Member States (between autumn 2012 and summer 2013).
Winter colony mortality rates ranged from 3.5% to 33.6% with huge
variability among countries and higher mortality in Northern Europe.
Bee Life finds unfortunate the fact that only pathogens are considered in
the monitoring. Pesticides and botanic resources could be easily integrated
to provide a more complete picture of stressing factors leading to colony
mortality. Today, this monitoring clearly demonstrates that in most of the
cases, pathologies (varroosis, nosemosis, American foulbrood) cannot explain
the mortality of honeybees.
The EFSA has identified duplicates and gaps in bee research. The gaps
highlighted are mainly linked to bee toxicology. Therefore, the EU food
safety authority pointed the need of coordinated and efficient research in
the EU.
Bee Life sees urgent need to invest on research on effects of chemicals on
colony bee health and on the ring testing of methods for pesticide risk
assessment. Bee Life raises awareness on the necessity for the EU
authorities to take actions based on independent research and to keep
critical regarding the development of industry-funded research.
DG AGRI acknowledged the role of pollinators for the sustainability of
European agriculture. Their policy vision for the future aims to create an
agricultural model in harmony with bees. Given the field reality of
beekeepers today, Bee Life can just support such idea and asks the
Commission to keep ambitious and determined in their future actions. This is
a political decision to be taken regarding a choice of society.
(1) http://sanco-bee-health-conference2014.eu/index.jsp
Twitter: #EU4Bees
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-260_en.htm
(2) http://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/live_animals/bees/health/index_en.htm
(3) http://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/live_animals/bees/docs/bee-report_en.pd
f
Contact:
Francesco Panella, President for European Beekeeping Coordination.
Tel: +32 10 47 16 34
[log in to unmask]
www.bee-life.eu
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