May 20 is World Bee Day . Not all animals have a dedicated world day, bees deserve it, not only for the sweetness they give us for their honey. This anniversary, in fact, is important because it must remind us of the situation in which these animals live and the impact that human activities have on these insects. Let’s go and see how bees are doing in the world and what is being done to save them.
World Bee Day: Objectives
Every year on May 20, this international day is celebrated with the intention of raising public awareness of the importance of pollinators for sustainable development and informing everyone about the threats they face every day, as our planet becomes more and more polluted.
Bees are not only honey producers, but they also make a major contribution to the reproduction of plants and many food crops. This means that, along with other pollinators, these insects also influence what we eat. Yet they are threatened by human activities that kill them with pesticides or by changing land use, thus depriving them of the substances they usually feed on. Entire colonies of bees can be destroyed, a tragedy for the planet, including humans.
In recent years, there has been much talk about the disappearance of bees from some areas of the Earth and this issue has also been taken to heart by the United Nations. There are many objectives of World Bee Day. First of all, it was declared to draw the attention of the world’s population and politicians to the need to protect bees, also because we depend on these little animals.
Saving bees is also a way to stop the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystems. Bees are linked to cultivation, therefore to the amount of food that can be produced on earth to feed those who live there. Saving them and allowing them to continue doing their work therefore means trying to adequately feed the greatest number of people, even in countries where hunger is a serious problem.
World Bee Day: History
The bee emergency has been identified in recent years, so this world day has existed for a very short time, precisely since 2017. The United Nations General Assembly chose May 20 because it is the birth date of Anton Janša (1734-1773). His name is not well known, but this Slovenian did a lot for bees. He was a pioneer of modern beekeeping techniques in his home country and understood already in his time the crucial importance of these insects for the life of the planet and of man.
World Bee Day: Emergency
Let’s look at some numbers of the emergency we talked about. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for Food and Agriculture speaks of levels of extinction, for bees, 100 to 1000 times higher than normal. This mortality is mainly linked to human actions and the use and abuse of pesticides in agriculture. Yet we should be the first to look after the health of these animals since about 75% of food crops depend on pollinators like them.
Since the situation shows no signs of improvement, this year, on World Bee Day, some representatives of the European Union member states will meet to discuss the implementation of the standards for toxicity assessment, namely the Bee Guidance Document developed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This 2013 document contains the proposal for more adequate and precautionary protocols in the event of the evaluation of the authorization of new molecules and which have not yet been adopted throughout Europe. There are some countries where precautions are pretended to be taken but in reality not much is done because there are so many interests at stake.
EFSA has fully applied the new rules only in the assessment of three neonicotinoids (imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam), which were banned in the European Union in 2018. So far, European national governments have not applied EFSA’s guidance in all other decisions concerning pesticides.
World Bee Day: initiatives
In this rather gloomy picture, however, some interesting initiatives are flourishing, such as that of Slow Food, which has launched the international campaign “Slow Bees” with the aim of defending pollinators and raising awareness of the threats affecting bees, other pollinating insects, plants and biodiversity.