Europe's beekeeping industry could be wiped out in less than a decade as bees fall victim to disease, insecticides and intensive farming, international beekeeping body Apimondia said today.
Last year, about 30 per cent of Europe's 13.6 million hives died, according to Apimondia figures. Losses reached 50 per cent in Slovenia and as high as 80 per cent in southwest Germany.
With 35 per cent of European food crops relying on bees to pollinate them, it poses a big threat for farmers, said Gilles Ratia, president of Apimondia.
"With this level of mortality, European beekeepers can only survive another eight to 10 years,” Mr Ratia said.
Mystery has surrounded the recent decline of bee numbers, but most keepers blame modern farming methods and the powerful new pesticides used on crops like sunflower, maize and rapeseed.
Two main factors were responsible for weakening bee colonies: insecticides and the parasitic mite Varroa, says Apimondia's scientific coordinator Gerard Arnold. Once weakened, the hives are then decimated by viruses and other diseases.
Evidence of farming's impact comes from the fact French honey output has suffered in intensive sunflower farming areas but has remained steady in mountains and chestnut forests, said Henri Clement, president of the French beekeeping union.
Beekeepers are perplexed about why so little attention is given to an industry that supplies 58 per cent of Europe's appetite of 340,000 tonnes of honey a year.
Earlier this year, the European Union voted to phase out the most toxic pesticides after years of wrangling, but many bee-keepers feel ignored by politicians. The honey industry's concerns are drowned out by the interests of the giant corporations that produce the pesticides, said Apimondia.
"Politicians are more susceptible to the big lobbying of the chemical industry," Mr Ratia said. "We beekeepers can talk and talk, but we don't receive much consideration."