In principle, we know well all, the importance of honey bees. But the numbers are still always impressive:
- 80% of our total domestic flowering plants are pollinated by honey bees.
- Without the contribution of bees yield fruit cultivation z. B. would fall by 75%. Bees pollinate containing stone and pome fruit trees, berry bushes, rape, peas, beans, clover, alfalfa, cabbage, carrots and all kinds of flowering plants.
- Therefore, the value of the bees are not measured by their honey production, but in their pollination services and thus their contribution to the conservation of biodiversity.
- In order to collect the nectar for 1 pound of honey, the honey bees lay back a distance equal to three times the circumference of the earth.
- German bees (currently identified by the black-red-gold probe pads) meet with her work about 20-25% of the German honey requirement.
- Every German eats an average of 1.3 kg of honey a year
About 80,000 beekeepers still in Germany, but they have, and that is worrying, with an average age of 65 years. There is a lack of young beekeepers and -Innen.
1952 alone there were still 182,000 beekeepers in West Germany with 2.1 million bee colonies.
1972 there were 87,100 beekeepers with over one million people.
The last census of the German Beekeepers' Association, based in Wachtberg near Bonn in 2009 resulted in a number of 81,500 members, with around 614,000 people.
A total worrying trend! (more ...)
