Bees and pollination 

In the last 20 years, beekeepers around the world have witnessed a frightening phenomena which has increased rapidly: bee death, or Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) which means that bees simply die by the scores. The bee hives are abandoned, and the bees are not coming back to repeat their annual cycle when the summer season is over. 

Researchers have struggled with understanding the basis for this development, but in later years concluded that the factors are complex and most likely linked to both climate change and different kinds of pesticides and industrial farming methods, where often complex chemicals have been used for large-scale agriculture. Further research remains to properly illuminate the complex role of bees in the ecosystem.

This is a massive problem - not just for those who enjoy honey, or mead for that matter - but for the entire planet. Bees are responsible for a huge part of the process of pollination, as they carry pollen from the flowers they feed upon and spread this pollen in the surrounding landscape. A lot of farmers keep bees not for the honey per se, but to improve pollination in their fields and agricultural areas. In some countries, there are in fact companies renting out bees to farmers, transporting them from place to place to do their thing on a temporary basis. If the bee population is decimated, we will no longer have an efficient way of spreading pollen and therefor lose a lot of the very foundation for modern agriculture. This concerns us all and poses an international problem.

Mjøderiet is of course dedicated to solving the problem of CCD, and as soon as we are financially able to donate money we will contribute to one or more organizations working to get the world's bee populations back to sustainable levels.