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CHIMIVER supports BeeLife

CHIMIVER supports BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination through its Corporate Social Responsibility Programme.

PRESS RELEASE
Chimiver supports BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination through its CSR Programme

JOINT PRESS RELEASE - 24 May 2022
Chimiver supports BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination through its Corporate Social Responsibility Programme

The family-owned Italian company Chimiver is the first company engaging in the long run to support BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination activities.

Chimiver has developed a new product called Oil Bee, a product using European beeswax for the protection of wooden floors and surfaces. Chimiver supports BeeLife through its Corporate Social Responsibility Programme, with a series of donations based on a variable sum of the total annual revenue of the product Oil Bee in 2022 and 2023.

For Chimiver, choosing BeeLife is a natural consequence of the path taken by a company that focuses on innovation, which has set itself the ambitious goal of becoming totally sustainable in the coming years. Not just reaching carbon neutrality, but also giving active support to all actions aimed to protect the ecological balance.

BeeLife is well aware of the ongoing commitment to the environmental and social sustainability of many companies. The association is willing to engage with these companies, that is why BeeLife is a member of the 1% for the planet initiative, that brings together companies (who are willing to dedicate 1% of their sales revenue for the protection of the planet) with environmental organisations. BeeLife creates win-win situations, which are beneficial for the environment and the European beekeeping sector while helping companies with their sustainability.

Oscar Panseri (CEO of Chimiver) said: “Aware of our role in the chemical sector, Chimiver has been promoting environmentally friendly activities for many years. Environmental protection is the base of our Corporate Social Responsibility Programme, all Chimiver products are conceived, designed and manufactured in order to safeguard applicators’ health and offer high-quality standards to end customers. For these reasons we are very glad and proud to support BeeLife, we want to be an active part in building a better future for the next generations.”

Francesco Panella president of BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination added “We are very pleased with the support received from Chimiver, which is not only a charitable donation but grants us the possibility to strengthen our activities such as advocating for the reduction of synthetic pesticides by 80% by 2030 in EU agriculture and the EU reform of agriculture statistics.”

We hope this collaboration between BeeLife and Chimiver is the start of fruitful work ahead, to build a healthy, socially and environmentally responsible future where pollinators and people can thrive, not only in Italy but across the globe.

About BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination
BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination is an NGO formed by professionals of the beekeeping sector from different countries of the European Union. BeeLife works for the protection of pollinators in Europe, highlighting their value for nature and people. With 25 members (beekeeping and farming associations) from 12 different European countries, BeeLife links policy, science and field observations to promote a more sustainable future for pollinators and their role in ecosystems.

About Chimiver
Chimiver is the market leader in Italy in the sector of products for glueing, treating, and maintaining wooden floors and it’s present in more than 60 countries all over the world with its solutions dedicated to all kinds of floor: parquet, resilients, resin, indoor and outdoor.The company is fully committed to environmental protection: recycled packaging, renewable raw materials, ecological and eco-sustainable products.

Ends ----

For more information please contact:
At BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination: Kata Gócs, Communications Officer, comms@bee-life.eu or visit www.bee-life.eu
At Chimiver: Andrea Trivella, Marketing Manager, a.trivella@chimiver.com or visit www.chimiver.com
Read on Website

2/8

BeeLife Press release

PRESS RELEASE
Wild bees are vulnerable, the acceptable loss of them due to pesticide exposure should be 0%
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, 1 April 2022
BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination is urging the protection of wild pollinators against pesticides. Wild bees are playing an important role in the pollination of crops and the reproduction of wild plants. The diversity of pollinators is vital to secure the resilience of pollination ecosystem services and guarantee the best crop yields (Garibaldi et al, 2016) [1]. Therefore the protection of wild pollinators is key to ensuring the EU’s food security and preserving biodiversity.

In January 2022, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a supporting document [2] to help risk managers (the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed - SCoPAFF) set up Specific Protection Goals (SPG) for wild bees in the EU. In this document, EFSA claimed that the level of knowledge on wild bees is insufficient to define the SPGs based on background variability. EFSA made a series of statements based on the available data obtained from regulatory field trials. The problem with these field trials is that the ‘control fields’ are also treated with pesticides, which the pesticide industry, EFSA, and DG SANTE all accepted. As a result, EFSA is using data from potentially pesticide-contaminated fields to determine the background mortality of wild bees, which will serve to evaluate the unacceptable effects of pesticides.

BeeLife European Beekeeping Coordination requests to stop allowing the unscientific habit of spraying the control fields with pesticides in regulatory field trials. Following the objectives set up in the EU Biodiversity Strategy and the EU Pollinators Initiative to revert pollinators decline; and given the lack of knowledge and data resulting in the precautionary principle, the aim is to set SPGs at 0%. Exceptionally, and only for regulatory purposes, we could envisage testing protocols allowing detection of a 3% difference in wild bees between control and tested fields.
Why should only such a low percentage of loss be accepted? Due to the following reasons:
1. The pesticide cocktail (what is the reality in field conditions) is not tested in the regulatory process;
2. The pesticide exposure is not evaluated in the ‘real-world’ context (e.g.: when there is a lack of habitat, lack of nutrition, other stressing factors, etc.);
3. The testing is done only on some model species. It is highly probable that the test species are not the most sensitive ones, among the 1900 species of wild bees in the EU. EFSA considered in 2013 [3] the intra-and inter-specific variations in toxicity, proposing some assessment factors of 5 (intra-specific) and 10 (inter-specific).

Noa Simón Delso, Scientific Director of BeeLife states "BeeLife requests a political commitment at a higher level, aiming for the highest protection of pollinators and making coherent political decisions. We can not revert the negative trends in pollinators if we continue accepting high levels of impact from pesticides. The diversity of pollinators should be considered as a production input."

The EU aim, to restore biodiversity as set up in the Biodiversity Strategy on one hand, and allow 10% loss of wild bee populations due to pesticide exposure, on the other hand, is not coherent and should not be accepted. Before the catastrophic state of biodiversity and without enough data on what can be considered ‘sustainable harm’ for wild pollinators, we urge the EU Member States to aim at 0% loss of bumblebees and solitary bees, but for a maximum of a 3% difference in wild bees between the control and the tested fields.

References:
[1] Garibaldi et al, 2016: Mutually beneficial pollinator diversity and crop yield outcomes in small and large farms
[2] EFSA, 2022: Analysis of the evidence to support the definition of Specific Protection Goals for bumble bees and solitary bees
[3] EFSA, 2013: Guidance on the risk assessment of plant protection products on bees (Apis mellifera, Bombus spp. and solitary bees) https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3295

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COLOSS monitoring wintersterfte 2021 - 2022

https://projects.honeybeevalley.eu/limesurvey/index.php/812337

Net als vorige jaren wordt in België de omvang van de wintersterfte gemonitord. Uw gegevens dragen bij aan de kennis over de internationale bijensterfte. Een grote deelname van imkers is noodzakelijk voor een betrouwbare analyse. De enquête sluit zeer nauw aan bij de vragenlijst die vastgelegd werd in het internationale COLOSS-consortium.

We roepen zoveel mogelijk imkers op om deze vragen in te vullen, ook als uw volken allemaal goed uit de winter kwamen, of juist helemaal niet.

Als extra motivatie om deze uitgebreide vragenlijst in te vullen, zullen we bij het afsluiten van de enquête (eind mei) aan alle deelnemers die hun emailadres opgeven een adviesrapport op maat opsturen. Hierin zal aangegeven worden of de gehanteerde methode goed is of dat er mogelijks nog ruimte is om bij te sturen. Tips vanuit Honeybee Valley met betrekking tot uw bedrijfsmethode zullen meegeven worden. We zullen u hierbij ook op de hoogte brengen van het wintersterftecijfer in gans Vlaanderen en mogelijke belangrijke conclusies die uit deze studie resulteerden. Geef zeker uw emailadres op en vul de vragenlijst tot het einde in als u dit rapport wenst te ontvangen.

Alvast vriendelijk bedankt voor uw deelname!

4/8

2022 47th APIMONDIA International Apicultural Congress

5/8

In the upcoming months, the following workshop will take place on line...

Dear BeeLife Members,

I am reaching out to inform you about a series of pollinator-related workshops, which are part of a broader consultation that collects expert views and proposals in the context of the revision of the EU Pollinators Initiative. The initiative, adopted in June 2018, was the first-ever EU action framework to tackle the loss of wild pollinators. The Commission’s review of the Initiative in May 2021 showed that the EU actions for pollinators have to be strengthened in order to reverse their decline.

In the upcoming months, the following workshops will take place online:

10 March 2022 - Pollinator Conservation under Climate Change: Challenges, Solutions, and Policy Actions
17 March 2022 - Dark nights: Pollinators and Light Pollution
7 April 2022 - Pollinators & Pesticides (exact title and focus of this workshop tbd.)
21 April 2022 - Conserving biodiversity at local and regional levels: Policy actions for pollinators
March/April 2022 (tbd.) - Pollinators & Industrial Pollution
April/May 2022 (tbd.) - Pollinators & Research

If you are interested and would like to attend & contribute to any of the latter workshops, I can provide you with the person to contact. The list of invitees, will be reviewed by the EC (in order to ensure sufficient and balanced representation of all stakeholder types).

Looking forward to see you tomorrow,

Best regards,

Noa

6/8

DISCOVERY OF NEW SELECTION TRAITS BRINGS THE BREEDING OF RESILIENT HONEY BEES ONE STEP CLOSER

7/8

Aanbevelingen voor een efficiente varroasbestrijding 2020

8/8

Monitoring of mortality in Belgian honeybee colonies 2019-2020

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