Further expansion of concordiaNATURA activities on bee health
After intensive preparation, we have spent the last few weeks on a research trip in Denmark to explore the opportunities and possibilities for a research project in the context of our topic "bee health".
Why Denmark?
The region, far in the north of Europe, seems to us to be very suitable because of the very different use of the landscapes. On the one hand, there are huge areas that are intensively used by the agricultural industry. Often one encounters monocultures with cereals, especially rapeseed and corn, in whole areas. Rapeseed is spread over large areas. We know that this plant is an excellent bee pasture, but whether it is good for the animals to bring in nectar and pollen from these fields is another matter. More than 90% of the fields are cultivated conventionally, using all legal pesticides and crop protection products. Two thirds of the total area of Denmark is used for agriculture (source Baedecker/Denmark).
On the other hand, one equally encounters very large areas that can be called "wilderness", at least from a European perspective. The state of Denmark has designated very large areas as national parks, which do justice to this status. Conventional agriculture is hardly to be found here, mostly not at all.
Another reason for the Foundation to visit these areas is the need to study the health of bees in different climatic zones and with very different food supplies. There are more than 3,000 kilometers between the first stations in Portugal, locations in Germany and planned stations in Denmark. It will be exciting to determine the resulting differences.
According to our information, the largest national park, with an area of 244 square kilometers (source Thy-Uge week 40-43) is the Thy National Park in the north of the Danish peninsula of Jutland, which was included in the research. The supply for bees, wild bees and other insects is diverse despite the dry dune landscape, right on the North Sea coast. The main suppliers are large areas overgrown with the late blooming dune heath. Worth mentioning are also large areas with sea buckthorn. Sea buckthorn begins to bloom as early as the end of March and continues until June. The wild dog rose is also common. It blooms from April until July. Sometimes, depending on the location, even longer. We could still find blossoms in November, which were flown to at temperatures of > 10°.
As a conclusion of the research, it is clear to us that the next step will be to win cooperation partners for the project, both in agricultural zones and in the national parks.