‘Honeybees Are Disappearing’ … Busan City Forms ‘Honeybee Research Consortium’ to Explore Countermeasures

Busan City is seeking countermeasures for the beekeeping industry, which is suffering damage due to changes in the environmental ecosystem.

The meeting of the "Bee Research Consortium," the first-ever nationwide "Beekeeping Research Public-Private-Academic Council."

On the 10th at 10 a.m., the city held the nation’s first "Beekeeping Research Public-Private-Academic Council" at City Hall and formed a "Honeybee Research Alliance" to take future action.

According to beekeeping experts and farmers, there was severe pre-winter mortality of honeybees in 2022 and 2023. This is analyzed to be caused by abnormal signs in the environmental ecosystem. Accordingly, the city established the public-private-academic council to prevent damage to beekeeping farms, provide proper management education, and foster and develop the beekeeping industry.

Attendees at the meeting included city officials, Director Jeong Nengi, a beekeeping veterinarian, Dr. Kim Hyunho, an entomologist from the Nakdonggang Estuary Center, Yang Hojin, head of the Busan branch of the Korea Beekeeping Association, and nine beekeeping farms from Busan.

The meeting discussed various issues such as the operation plan for the beekeeping-related public-private-academic council, diagnosis of pre-winter honeybee damage and countermeasures, strategies for the development of the beekeeping industry, and sharing pre-winter damage prevention measures from leading farms.

The city plans to actively collect opinions from farmers and experts and seek cooperation measures based on them. In particular, the alliance will be activated to share specialized knowledge that is difficult to disseminate to farms, aiming to respond to honeybee mortality.

Lee Dongseong, Director of the Livestock and Agricultural Distribution Division, stated, "We will actively review the opinions presented at this public-private-academic council to reduce damage to beekeeping farms and will continuously create opportunities to communicate with farmers in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.