Is it good to repopulate the country with 47 million Iberian bees? A company's plan clashes with the experts

The consumer electronics company LG launched the challenge of planting 47 million trees in Spain, one for each inhabitant, in 2017. At the moment they have five million and, without waiting to meet this objective, it has launched a new environmental challenge not less spectacular: repopulate the Peninsula with 47 million specimens of Iberian bees (

According to the multinational based in South Korea, with this goal it not only hopes to recover this species in decline, but also "to achieve an exponential effect on all the flora of our country and thus promote the expansion and recovery of our ecosystems."

It looked like a

without fissures.

However, not everyone has liked it: experts in pollinating insects consider that it is not such a good idea to release so many millions of bees.

The professor and researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid Concepción Ornosa explains that the idea of ​​introducing the native species of the Iberian Peninsula is attractive, but adds that they should be replaced by the bees that perish each year and not repopulate massively.

And she warns of the danger of "introducing in an oversized way" this subspecies of the bee.

“If you put 47 million of a single species in nature, you create a competition that will affect all the other species of wild bees, bumblebees, insects, and butterflies that already inhabited the place.

In addition, it has been shown that they infect other bees and bumblebees with fungi and viruses, and they do so through the flowers they pollinate, becoming transmitters of pathogens”, she adds.

The technology company's project, called Smart Green Bees, is developed thanks to the Rincón de la Abeja association, which carries out all the technical part of the initiative.

The biologist of the association and head of the project, Paola Vecino explains: "We will have 900 hives, which we want to reach between two and three years in a dispersed way throughout the Spanish territory.

At the moment, we have established 45 hives with a total of 250,000 bees”.

Until now, these bees have been distributed among 15 hives in Real de Montroi (Valencia), 15 hives in Sant Climent (Barcelona), 15 hives in Montes de Málaga (Málaga) and 13 hives in Novelda (Alicante) and those responsible for the project They intend to expand between the months of February and March up to 45 hives in each of the first three regions and the colonies of Alicante will also undergo an expansion, according to the Report on the State of the Hives and Memory of 2022 provided by the association.

The Professor of the University of Salamanca, zoologist and entomologist Félix Torres does not believe that 900 beehives is a very high number and explains that it is the number of hives that a single strong beekeeper can have in the Sierra de Salamanca.

In Europe there are nine million hives, of which three million are in Spain.

But he warns: “Just as one farm does not affect the ecosystem, a million farms do.

One hive is not significant, but millions of hives are noticeable in nature.

In degraded environments it supposes an added pressure”.

In the world there are more than 17,000 species of bees, explains Ornosa, and all of them, the honey bee and the wild ones, including the bumblebees that are also part of the family, are excellent pollinators of crops and wild plants.

The bee that is being introduced in this project is

an endemic subspecies ―autochthonous and exclusive― of the Iberian Peninsula and is part of the group of honey bees, but they have different physical and biochemical characteristics from the other producer bees. North African and European such as

from Italy or

from central Europe.

The CSIC researcher at the Doñana Biological Station Ignasi Bartomeu warns that the problem of conserving the many species of bees is specifically the wild ones: "In Spain we have a thousand species of bees, twice as many as birds and they are being affected due to climate change and the human factor.

If the idea is to protect pollinators, it is wrong, it is as if you wanted to take care of the birds in Spain by putting chickens”.

The last species Torres would choose to make a call about the decline of bees would be the honey bee, since it is the most robust species.

“Domestic bees are the most aggressive, exerting pressure, displacing the wild bee and negatively affecting biodiversity.

Promoting the honey bee is fine from the livestock and economic point of view, but we cannot use this tool to talk about the nature or decline of the insects”, clarifies the entomologist.

On the other hand, from Rincón de la Abeja they defend that the species they want to introduce is in clear decline: “Many beekeepers are throwing in the towel due to the problems involved in care, floral decline and the threat of varroa (a type of mite) and the Asian hornet (V

”.

The objective they have is to alleviate the "tendency to disappearance" of this animal and for this, Vecino assures that all the necessary previous studies have been carried out so that the introduction of the Iberian bee does not affect the ecosystem or the flora or fauna of the place.

And he adds that a flower calendar has been made in the areas where the beehives have been established.

Both the report and the person in charge of the project indicate that one in four hives have been monitored in the four areas and, with the data extracted from honey, pollen and brood charts, it is expected to reach more precise conclusions about this bee.

The association explains that it has meticulously chosen experienced beekeepers, among whom there are amateurs and professionals - a professional beekeeper has more than 150 hives and an amateur does not reach that number - who were close to the selected enclaves and who made use of the bee native to the Iberian Peninsula and with easily accessible hives.

The biologist explains: "All the beekeepers who collaborate with the association comply with the legality of their activity, since the hives are notarized in the General Registry of Livestock Farms, they undergo all veterinary checks and are located in places with flower loads. and enough water.

The danger of the decline of pollinators

The researcher Ornosa warns: "The benefits of world agricultural production depend directly on pollinators, especially bees, all bees, and that is around 577,000 million dollars a year, according to IPBES and the FAO."

The professor from the University of Salamanca agrees: “There are other species of pollinating bees that participate in crops and flowers, and that are also very necessary at an economic level in crops.

In a greenhouse we know how important the bumblebee is, but we don't know the value of the bee in the wild and in intensive crops."

The CSIC researcher encourages action to be taken on the matter: “Wild bees are in danger of extinction but they are still [here]: although their populations are decreasing, they can rise again.

It is a very clear signal and it is time to act.

It is important to maintain a variety of breeds, since each one has a different gene pool that is a mattress, because if a virus comes and we only have one type of bee, we would lose the entire species.

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