Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Beekeepers' stories - Hungary
There was a serious bee poisoning in Paks, where a lot of families were affected,
many beekepers' livelihoods were ruined,
they were using a tractor sprayer, spraying Regent with hypronil as the agent,
it caused the death of bees on a mass scale.
There were sackloads of bee corpses, it was an awful sight.
There was a thick carpet of them in front of the containers.
That was a total wipe-out. They didn't weaken, they all died, no families were left alive.
I started beekeeping at the age of 33, I felt touched when I passed the hives, I liked the smell.
Like train drivers fall for the smell of the engine, I fell for the smell of honey and propolis.
That's how I became a beekeeper and it became a calling.
Climate change, the loss of natural habitat, diseases, parasites, industrial agriculture and its chemicals all endanger bees.
We have a lot of problems to do with agriculture. Seed coating materials and sprays are especially problematic.
Neonicotine chemicals are the ones that harm the bees, like the Gaucho and Poncho coating materials.
They destroy their orientation, their smell,
if they suck the guttation drops of maize at dawn, they don't find the way home.
Foreign research proves this. Guttation drops haven't been investigated in Hungary.
So they won't be able to fly. If the little bees suck these drops, they just fall to the ground by the corn, and the hives go empty...
The bee family doesn't need to die - it is enough to weaken them.
They may no longer be able to carry nectar because of the loss of smell.
Their coordination gets worse, they can't get into the hive. They look for the entrance at the back.
It can cause a lot of problems for the bees.
They are built like humans - they have the same organs, only on a smaller scale.
What is deadly for us in a large quantity will be deadly for them in a minute quantity.
And if they take the chemicals home on their coat of hair, they pass them on to each other, they weaken the whole family.
All the beekeepers in Tolna county expect more respect for the pollinating work of bees.
Bees bring much more benefit to people than to the beekeeper.
99% of the benefits go the people and still bees don't get as much respect as any other livestock or agriculture.
I think the work of bees is just as important for us as air.
If bees don't pollinate our plants, we don't have food.
We can't exist without food.
Bees died out in the Chinese province of Sichuan. People pollinate with fur gloves and the price of food has soared.
I think we should value a little animal like this much more.
They work selflessly, they work until they die because that's their role.
They work in families. I love bees.
We are asking for the various European research results to be taken into account.
Were asking for action that has been done in 6 or 7 countries, where coating materials have been suspended or ruled out.
Let us accept these research results too.
Bees should be appreciated, not the beekeepers.
It is not our work that should be respected, we do it anyway, even if we don't make a profit, because we love bees.
Bees should be respected. And through the bees we also receive appreciation.
Save our bees and agriculture, ban bee-killing chemicals!
Let's save bees. Now.