Bees pollinate plants and ensure that they grow fruits and vegetables. Nevertheless, these hard workers only produce a teaspoon of honey over their lifespan.

24

24 Blossom or forest honey from the region or from abroad, honey in a jar or in a dispenser bottle: in the local Supermarket, customers are spoiled with choice. Depending on the branch, up to 24 different products are available.

2,000,000,000,000

or two trillion bees live in beehives used for agriculture, according to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In good years, the average harvest is 20 to 30 kilograms per bee colony.

Around 17,500 beekeepers keep around 165,000 bee colonies in Switzerland alone.

A bee can produce a maximum of one teaspoon of honey in its life. So it is hardly surprising that a kilogram of Swiss bee honey quickly costs 25 Swiss francs.

Bees are very hard workers.

Wild – and Honey bees and bumblebees as well, are responsible for pollinating many plants. The industrious little animals indirectly produce fruit, berries, and vegetables worth an average of 342 million Swiss francs each year.

1,850, 000

Bees produced 1,850,000 tons of honey around the world in 2019. Almost a quarter of the amount comes from China. Other important production countries are Turkey, Iran, Argentina, Ukraine, and the USA. With a little over four tons, Switzerland is one of the small producers.

A cold April, a cool May with many rainy days: the spring harvest was a total failure for many Swiss beekeepers because of the bad weather. Many even had to feed their colonies. And even the summer, so far mostly gray and wet, seems to be over in many places.

Story by Kian Ramezani, Rüdi Steiner -Translated by Ulrich Koepf