Beekeeper Healthy honey This is going to be a honey year

German beekeepers expect good honey year 2014

05/04/2014

Cold and rain made life difficult for the bees in the past two years. This resulted in lower honey harvests and high prices. The mild spring gives beekeepers hope for this year now. This is also good news for anyone who appreciates honey as a traditional home remedy.

Hope for a good honey year
After the honey harvest has been rather meager in the past two years, the German beekeepers hope for better yields thanks to the warm spring this year. Opposite the news agency dpa said the President of the German Beekeeper Association, Peter Maske: „The signs are that it will be a good honey year.“ The mild weather of recent months also favored the development of the varroa mite, which is dangerous for bees. Therefore, it is expected in the summer with losses. The expert also expects the collapse of individual bee colonies.

In recent years, many bees lost
The winter, however, would have survived the bees unusually well. „In the national average, we are likely to have lost about 10 percent of the bees“, so mask. In the year before, it had been 20 percent and in the previous year, even 30 percent. The bees were also lured by the quite high temperatures unusually early from their sticks. About three weeks earlier than usual this year. „But there is a downside: Even the Varroa mite is doing well.“ The parasite is one of the most dangerous enemies of the bee colonies and proliferates in their brood. An infestation can be combated by the beekeepers, for example, with lactic acid. They take the brood, let them hatch outside the beehive and then kill the mites on the hatched bees.

Strong criticism of European Parliament decision
The beekeeper president vehemently criticized the European Parliament's decision not to indicate on the label whether or not honey contains pollen from gene plants. „We see this as consumer delusion“, so mask. „We as beekeeper associations want this distinction because we do not want these genetically modified pollen in honey.“ In mid-April, this new regulation was adopted, which classifies pollen as a natural component of honey. Therefore, they do not have to be mentioned as an ingredient.
Honey as a traditional remedy
According to Maske, the members of the German Beekeepers Association harvested around 16,000 tonnes of honey in 2013. In good years it had been already 20,000 tons. According to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Germans eat around 85,000 tons of honey a year. On average, that's more than a kilogram per inhabitant. Most of it has to be imported. In natural medicine honey is used for various ailments. Although some naturopathic applications, such as the use of stomach ulcers with honey have been refuted and others have not yet been scientifically confirmed, honey is still known as a traditional remedy. Even critics admit that there is nothing wrong with warm milk with honey as a home remedy for coughing. Even with colds or sleep disorders, many swear by the effects of this mixture. (Ad)

Picture: Sascha Arnold