The initiative, developed by the Friends of Bees Foundation, highlights the importance of bees in preserving the natural environment and promoting rural development.

The director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ana Leiva, presented on Monday, February 14, in Guadalajara, the project “Action for the recovery and maintenance of ecosystems”, carried out by the Friends of Bees Foundation, through the installation of pollination apiaries where professional beekeepers do not settle.

The event, held at the Guadalajara Press Center, was also attended by Luis Pérez, president of the Friends of Bees Foundation, and Alfonso Martínez, biologist specializing in the environment and advisor to the project.

The recovery of ecosystems proposed by this initiative is based on three fundamental aspects: the installation of pollination apiaries in those places where there are deficits; the loan of hives to facilitate the start of the activity of novice beekeepers and the recovery of swarms that settle in inhabited areas, to avoid damage to public health and diseases of the bees themselves (which can die from ‘Varroa’, a genus of mite, as well as other opportunistic diseases).

In general terms, with the installation of hives and their maintenance, the aim is to enhance entomophilic pollination and, consequently, the productivity of forests, promote their conservation and that of the species that inhabit them.

The actions planned within the framework of the project are not only aimed at contributing to the preservation of the environment, but also to the generation of employment associated with the rural environment, through the training of people determined to get started in the world of beekeeping.

Good pollination of plants provides food and improved habitats for the fauna with which they live. According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2004), bees are responsible for the pollination of more than 80 percent of the world’s vegetation and, to a lesser extent, so are birds and mammals. Thus, the importance of insects in this work is such, especially that of bees, that their disappearance would seriously compromise the survival of numerous plant and animal species and would cause substantial losses to agriculture.