Woofing in West Cork, part 2. Beekeeping, and organic food production in Ireland
90% of the honey we eat in Ireland is imported.
The main reason for this sorry state of affair it that bee keeping isn’t economically viable. With 100 hives (which pretty much makes it a full time job), Tim produced 2 tonnes of honey last year, which he sells at 4 euros / lb wholesale. I let you do the maths, and realise that there isn’t much money in beekeeping… Irish honey has to compete against imported honey, which sells for as little as 2.60 / lb (at least that what we pay for the excellent organic, fair trade South American honey we have been eating lately at the centre). As is often the case with agriculture, it is cheaper (at least in the short run) to be importing stuff, rather that producing it ourselves.
This is where it is important to remember that money is a good servant, but a very bad master. Making our purchasing decision based solely on economic, rather than environmental or ethical considerations is short sighted at best (and in the long run, it’s usually downright stupid). As I write this, I wonder should have bought not 12, but 50 jars of honey from Tim, and offered to pay 10 euros for each. This would have been consistent with our decision to pay Frank and Christina to produce as much fruit and vegetable as possible for the yoga centre, rather than buying imported ones (which would be many times cheaper). And yet, Irish organic vegetable production gets more government support than beekeeping. (Still, 80% of all organic fruit and vegetable sold in this country come from abroad.).
So the number of bees and beekeepers in Ireland keeps dwindling.
Basically, because of disease and particularly the Varroa Mite (introduce from Asia by man), there are no longer any wild bees in Ireland. Any “wild” bee colony is in fact a swarm from a “domesticated” hive, and is doomed because without man help, bee colonies cannot survive any more.
Nearly half of Tim’s bee colonies had died last winter, and this seems to be quite common.
Now, if half of West Cork cattle or sheep population died for whatever reasons, you can be sure that this would be front page news and presumably, the Irish government would pay out millions of euros in compensation to affected farmers. But no one seems to care much about bees, and there no subsidies for beekeeping although around 80% of the income of an average sheep farm comes not from the sale of sheep, as you might naively expect, but from CAP subsidies.
There’s signs of hope however, both for organic vegetable production, and for beekeeping. As more and more people take to producing some of their own food as a hobby, organic gardening courses and beekeeping courses are getting increasingly popular (the organic gardening course we are running at macalla farm filled up quickly). So hopefully, more people will keep a few hives in their back garden or on a corner of their farms, enjoy home produced honey, and keep the Irish bees alive.
“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”. (Margaret Mead)
Let’s hope so, anyway, for, as Tim puts it, if all the bees died, we might have to pollinate apple trees by hand, but who is going to pollinate the sycamores?
Christophe
Photo of the bee taken by Tim Rowe
Tags: beekeeping, organic food production, woofing