Estará a apicultura a fazer mais mal do que bem?

euronews (em português)

Estará a apicultura a fazer mais mal do que bem?  À medida que as colmeias de abelhas geridas se multiplicam, as abelhas selvagens e as borboletas estão a desaparecer. Uma vez que as abelhas melíferas não estão em vias de extinção, será a apicultura responsável pelo declínio das outras abelhas?  Em parceria com The European Commission  LEIA MAIS : http://pt.euronews.com/2025/07/03/estara-a-apicultura-a-fazer-mais-mal-do-que-bem  Subscreva, euronews está disponível em 12 línguas.

Transcript

00:00Is honey beekeeping doing more harm than good?

00:03One-third of pollinator species,

00:05such as bees, butterflies, bats and hummingbirds,

00:08are in decline in many parts of the world.

00:11In Europe, one out of ten bee and butterfly species

00:14is threatened with extinction.

00:21Without pollination, there is no plant reproduction.

00:24Many plant species would decline and eventually disappear.

00:28Almonds, apples, coffee and strawberries are some of the foods

00:33that depend on the essential pollination work carried out by bees.

00:37What is really happening is that we are losing the rare and dangerous species

00:41and we are reducing the populations of many bees.

00:45And for this, we don't need to speculate.

00:48We already know that in agricultural areas,

00:51very intensive with large monocultures,

00:54they lose most of their wealthy populations

00:58and the crop yields have declined consequently.

01:03So, for humans, a first clear impact is that the crop production will decrease.

01:11There are 20,000 different species of bees.

01:14Species of flies, butterflies, moths, wasps, beetles, drapes, birds, bats and other vertebrates.

01:21However, humans can only domesticate or manage honeybees,

01:25which isn't always the most effective species,

01:28either in how much they can pollinate or the range of plants they serve.

01:32As wild bee and butterfly population shrink,

01:35the number of honey bee hives in the European Union has been steadily growing.

01:40The EU is the world's second largest honey producer after China.

01:45The drivers of pollinator decline are well known.

01:49Land use changes, intensive farming, pesticide use, pollution, invasive species,

01:55infectious diseases and climate change.

01:58But now, some scientists say honey beekeeping could be making things worse.

02:03So, in the agricultural areas we were working on in Spain, which were orange groves,

02:09and beekeepers put hives close to these groves to get honey.

02:15But then, what happens with oranges is that they flower all at the same time,

02:20and they flower for a short period of time, something like a week or something like that.

02:24And then, when all of those orange flowers disappear, those bees,

02:28they were moving into the surrounding areas in search for extra food.

02:33So, could large honey bee hives be depriving wild bees of the food they need to survive?

02:39They have very large colonies of tens of thousands of individuals

02:43and are extremely good at finding flower resources and foraging for those resources.

02:48So, when there is abundance of honey bees in the neighborhood,

02:52you have some serious competition.

02:54Those wild bees are really under serious competition.

02:57For that reason, for many ecologists, honey beekeeping is not protecting biodiversity.

03:03In some cases, it may even be harmful,

03:06especially where there are fewer flowers like urban spaces.

03:10I've even seen some campaigns trying to increase the amount of honey bee hives,

03:15like commercial honey bee hives, to rescue pollinators.

03:19And for me, that would be equivalent to say like we need more chicken farms to save the bird biodiversity.

03:25So, what's the solution to saving wild bees?

03:28If I can plant a wildflower patch in my garden, if you can do the same,

03:33bit by bit, it just exponentiates and extrapolates.

03:38And it's just one step that you can do.

03:40The solutions may sound simple, but putting them into practice is not always straightforward.

03:46Many of these steps are already encouraged by the EU Pollinators Initiative,

03:51but adoption remains a challenge.

03:53Researchers agree.

03:55The most important step is raising awareness and educating the public.

03:59Planting native flowers, the ones that local bees have evolved with,

04:03can make a big difference.

04:05Think borage, comfrey, lavender and dandelions.

04:09And rather than keeping lawns perfectly trimmed, let them grow a little wild.

04:14Avoid pesticide use whenever possible.

04:17Because bees don't just help us grow food, they serve as bio-indicators of ecosystem health.

04:23So, if wild bees are driving in your garden, you're helping biodiversity drive too.

04:28The Dandelions Campus

04:31The Dandelions Campus

04:32Amém.

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