Death knell sounds for Europe’s beekeepers | Reuters

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BRUSSELS, April 27 (Reuters) – Europe’s beekeeping industry could be wiped out in less than a decade as bees fall victim to disease, insecticides and intensive farming, international beekeeping body Apimondia said on Monday.

“With this level of mortality, European beekeepers can only survive another 8 to 10 years,” Gilles Ratia, president of Apimondia, told Reuters.

“We have had big problems in southwest France for many years, but also now in Italy and Germany.”

Last year, about 30 percent of Europe’s 13.6 million hives died, according to Apimondia figures. Losses reached 50 percent in Slovenia and as high as 80 percent in southwest Germany.

With 35 percent of European food crops relying on bees to pollinate them, it poses a big threat for farmers, said Ratia.

via Death knell sounds for Europe’s beekeepers | Reuters .

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