Beekeepers sound the alarm. Bee deaths last winter were much higher than in other years. Nationally, 30 to 40 percent of the colonies did not survive the winter. “And that is a lot,” says Ad van der Heijden of beekeepers association Bijerijstad from the municipality of Meierijstad. “In other years with a lot of bee mortality, it was about 10 to 15 percent.”
All beekeepers of the Bijerijstad bee association from the municipality of Meierijstad met on Tuesday evening to see how many colonies have made it through the winter. And that is disappointing. 25 percent did not survive the winter. Of the 237 nations, 177 remain.
Ad van der Heijden from Mariaheide is chairman of Bijerijstad and has been a beekeeper himself for over forty years. “I am a beekeeper of ten colonies. Four of my colonies did not survive the winter. In other years I touched at most one people. lost. This has never happened to me.”
There are two reasons why so many bees are dying. According to Van der Heijden, the first is the very long warm summer. “Bees have been flying for a very long time,” explains the beekeeper. “They have collected a lot of food, but they have not eaten enough to go into winter.”
“It’s a personal drama for beekeepers.”
The other cause is the varroat mite. This mite lives in the beehive. The Netherlands has suffered from this since 1984. “We do combat them, but it is difficult to get rid of this mite completely,” says Ad. “If the mite is in the hive with the bee in the winter, it is bad for the bee. The mite bites through the shell of the bee and viruses get through those holes. The bee can’t stand that.”
“Initially, it is a personal drama for the beekeepers,” the beekeeper continues. “It is our hobby to take the best possible care of our animals.” But bees are also used by gardeners to pollinate crops. “There are quite a few pollinator beekeepers in the Netherlands, including in our association. At the moment they cannot supply enough colonies to pollinate all those strawberries and peppers, for example.
“We all have to work on it together.”
One of the solutions to bee mortality is to breed bees that are more resistant to the varroa mite. “They have come a long way with that,” says the chairman. “We are getting a generation of bees that peck the varroa mite larvae out of the hive before they reach adulthood.”
Then there is still the problem of climate change. “Well, we all have to work on that,” says Ad. “It is true that I keep ordinary Dutch bastard bees. They adapt best to the climate.”
