March - bee protection month

During March, the Beekeeping Association of Serbia (SPOS) and NALED are organizing a public campaign "Bee Protection Month". The goal is for all those involved in beekeeping and agriculture, environmental protection or other stakeholders to engage in public-private dialogue and identify problems, challenges and possible solutions for countering bee poisoning.

Serbia is the country with the highest number of bees per capita (one bee per six inhabitants). About 20,000 beekeepers operate and raise 1.3 million bees that produce 7,000 tons of honey annually. However, due to poisoning of the bees, the bee stock has been declining by a fifth per year, while honey production dropped from 12,000 tons in 2015 to 7,000 tons in 2017. Bee poisoning most often occurs due to the practice of dusting mites and mosquitoes from the air or the irresponsible use of pesticides in agriculture, many of which are illicit and purchased on the black market.

- For our country, the extinction of bees would mean a direct economic loss of 148 million euros per year. More importantly, bees are the best indicator of a safe environment for humans because they can only live in a healthy and clean environment. Without them, quality and healthy food would disappear from our table and that's why keeping our bees safe means keeping our lives - said the president of the Beekeeping Association of Serbia, Rodoljub Živadinović, at the start of the campaign.

The goal of campaign is to contribute to the conservation of bee communities by improving the regulatory framework, strengthening the capacity of inspections, educating farmers, businesses and local governments about the dangers of pesticides.

- Beekeeping is burdened with significant bureaucracy that makes it impossible to address the issue of poisoning, since a number of permits are required to move hives out of the dusting area. Another problem is the lack of capacity among inspections responsible for beekeeping, as well as the fact that, when poisoning happens, the cost of analyzes for evidence is borne by beekeepers, which is why most of them give up on further proceedings - said NALED Executive Director Violeta Jovanović.

„Bee Protection Month” is organized as part of a four-year Public-Private Dialogue for Growth project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by NALED in collaboration with the National Public Policy Secretariat. Public consultations in this area will mark the first in a series of roundtables, which will be held on Tuesday, March 5 from 11:00h to 12:30h at the Palace of Serbia in Belgrade. The next roundtables will be held in Novi Sad (14.03) and Čačak (26.03), and all interested parties can submit their solutions and proposals for improving the protection of bees through social networks and the theme website www.jpd.rs.