A pioneer among beekeepers

Organic farming in all its facets is on the rise, the Free State wanted to honor pioneers and fighters as early as 2020 - the pandemic prevented it.

These days, state medals have been awarded to pioneers, including a man from Starnberg: Hubert Dietrich, organic beekeeper.

Starnberg -

Anyone who hears beekeepers in the city and district usually thinks of Hubert Dietrich (81). The man from Starnberg has been the chairman of the district association for many years, giving courses, teaching and giving lectures - and of course constantly looking after his colonies. 20 years ago he went to a lecture on organic beekeeping out of interest, and everything has been organic for him since then. For his services, he was awarded a state medal this week, together with 20 other pioneers in organic farming and marketing from all over Bavaria - such as Georg Scheitz sen. Hubert Dietrich received his award for his life's work, so to speak.

He has been a beekeeper for around 23 years and an organic beekeeper for 21 years. At the time he was interested in the organic version of the beekeeper (“I wanted to know how to do it”) and stuck with it. Organic beekeepers, he says, have to obey strict rules. Because it cannot be ruled out that the bees have not even started to work on treated flowers. “Bees cannot be controlled,” says Dietrich. The rules, however, try to get as much organic into the honey as humanly possible. An organic beekeeper is not allowed to set up the colonies next to a conventionally farmed field, he is only allowed to use a few, near-natural remedies against the Varroa mite, he has to have honey and wax examined regularly. And exactly to the microgram. Hubert Dietrich never had any problems with it. The region, the Fünfseenland, suits an organic beekeeper,because there are many nature reserves and some peoples live in the city.

Hubert Dietrich usually has 20 colonies, which corresponds to around 100,000 to 140,000 bees in winter, and around 800,000 in summer. This year was a bad year for beekeepers, one of the worst in decades. There were multiple cold shocks, which slows down the number of bees, and what they had collected they needed themselves. Some beekeepers, the chairman of the association knows, would not have made any honey at all. It is mostly 20 kilograms per colony, depending on the location. Dietrich also ran out of honey. Only June was okay for the bees, the rest too cold and too wet.

The Starnberg man has received the state medal as long-time chairman of the Starnberg Beekeeping Association and because he has been an advocate for bees, nature conservation and the preservation of traditional cultural landscapes for more than 20 years, the Ministry of Agriculture announced. He has made a significant contribution to the development, design and dissemination of ecological beekeeping and has been a member of the Presidium of the Association of Bavarian Carnica Breeders (VBC) since 2021. Hubert Dietrich is known nationwide as the organizer of the beekeeping talks, which normally take place in Starnberg, but this year were relocated to the Wendelstein due to corona. The man from Starnberg is in many associations, one suggested him for the award, which he was very happy to receive as recognition.

In the past 20 years, the organic concept has also gained more and more followers among beekeepers. When Dietrich started, there were two of them in the club; today there are more than a dozen. The number of members rose from 130 to 330. What Hubert Dietrich has not yet found is a successor to the chairmanship.