The purpose of the World Bee Day on May 20, is to acknowledge the role of bees and other Insect pollination for the nature, agriculture and more. Beekeeping can be a sensitive business. Around the world, there has been a dramatic dying off of bees in large numbers, due to environmental and chemical factors.

Statement by the General Assembly President on World Bee Day 2020, May 20.

Throughout the 74th session of the General Assembly we have focused on poverty eradication and zero hunger. On World Bee Day we acknowledge the role of the bee in food security and biodiversity.

Although diminutive, bees underpin our food systems: close to three-quarters of the world’s crops depend, at least in part, on bees and other pollinators. In economic terms, natural pollinators contribute up to $577 billion to the global economy.

However, colonies have been collapsing due to disturbances in their habitats as a result of intensive agricultural practices, changes in land use, urbanization, and the use of pesticides which are harmful to pollinators. Furthermore, bees face the threat of climate change-induced extreme weather events.

In this first year of the Decade of Action and Delivery to implement the Sustainable Development Goals, we are focusing our efforts on nature-based solutions. If we are to make progress on the SDGs, we must prioritise the preservation of bees and other pollinators.

On World Bee Day I call on all Member States to pursue agricultural policies which protect bees and promote green spaces in urban areas which allow for pollination. Furthermore, I urge farmers everywhere to protect bee habitats by adopting pollinator-friendly practices in agricultural management. I commend all beekeepers, and trust that they will share their expertise to create a better world.

I am confident that by working together to save the bees we will succeed in ending hunger and eradicating poverty for everyone, everywhere.

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande

FORUM: World Bee Day 2020, May 20.

The annual mortality rate for honeybees is currently at a steep 30 per cent (a rate of 5 per cent is considered normal). The trouble started some 10 years ago, according to Discover magazine, when beekeepers around the world began reporting that healthy bees simply disappeared, leaving no dead bodies for study. The crisis was called colony collapse disorder (CCD). The magazine reports that bees no longer just disappear. Instead, they die at far faster rates than normal as a host of other ailments, such as deformed wing virus and deadly pathogens, exact a toll. Climate change has also been blamed.

SWEET SUCCESS

• Pedigreed bees instead of imported ones.

• In Guatemala, honey production is an alternative form of community development.

• “Bee-Keeping Development Project for Biodiversity and income generation”.

• Moldova's honey production gets a boost.

• Reasons to Bee Cheerful: Raising Incomes, and Letting Bees Do the Work.