H R Eswaran
The 47th Apimondia International Apicultural Congress was held at Istanbul congress centre, Istanbul, Turkiye from the 24th to 28th of August 2022. I had the privilege to attend the congress for the first time along with my colleagues, Anita, Shiny and Mahadesh. It also happened to be the 125th year of Apimondia, “the world of bees”.
My expectation going to the congress, was to hear more of bee conservation, biology etc and I was very surprised to see the big commercial world bees (in this case only Apis mellifera) and honey trade. I was astonished to see the volume of bee, wax and honey products trade all over the world.
I learnt that the volume of trade from Brazil alone was around 8000 tonnes per year in 2021, then I wondered how big it should be all over the world. The number of machines used for beekeeping and the number of companies into it was just unimaginable to me. All the time I was thinking the bee trade is just honey and beeswax, now I learnt of many more products like Propolis, Bee venom and Bee veterinary products are multimillion dollar industries.
One of my key observations was that in many countries bee keeping is regulated and they have an act and rules on how beekeeping is to be run and on how honey is to be sold. I found this very interesting and I wonder why they needed these Acts and Rules.
As expected, it was nice to see some Phone based Applications on Bee Keeping and how it helps in monitoring and collecting data from the hive boxes.The congress did not give only happiness and excitement, it gave me some concerns as well…
On seeing the market for bees and honey, “Bees are made to work so hard” for mankind!
It was only “Apis Melifera” and as if no other bees existed in the world!
