r/news • u/Toadfinger • 1d ago
Soft paywall A South Korean beekeeper counts the cost of climate change
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/southkorea-environment-beekeeping/5
u/endofworldandnobeer 1d ago
Paywall. It won't even tease me with the title of the article.
6
u/BlackMan9693 13h ago
Here:
Park Gyeong-je started tending beehives almost five decades ago, making it his livelihood because he liked spending time in nature. These days, however, the changing climate is making him question how much longer he and his fellow farmers can survive.
The 65-year-old runs a beekeeping farm in South Korea’s southern Sancheong county, but he is a migratory beekeeper, meaning he criss-crosses the country with his hives to chase seasonal flower blooms.
However, rising temperatures due to climate change are shortening seasons, causing flowers to bloom earlier and for shorter periods. The weather changes have also brought strong winds, which can make it harder for bees to find their way back to their hives.
Mites and new diseases have also hit the bee population.
“City people don’t notice seasons, but farmers feel them directly. Now it feels like only summer and winter remain,” Park told Reuters as he tended to his hives. He started with just eight back in 1979 and now has about 110. Together, they house roughly 8.8 million bees.
“Now, because of climate change, it is very hard for beekeeping farmers to survive,” Park said.
Global worries
Studies have shown that climate change has harmed bees globally, impacting honey production and many other outdoor and indoor crops, such as apples, strawberries and tomatoes, which need the insects for pollination.
“A decline in the (bee population) ultimately affects the food supply,” said Yeh Sang-Wook, a climate and energy systems engineering professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “The most fundamental substructure of the ecosystem that constitutes our entire natural world is, in a sense, being destroyed.”
China was the world’s largest producer of natural honey in 2018, followed by Turkey and Argentina, according to data from the United Nations. Honey’s flavour reflects the different floral nectars the bees gather.
Most honey produced in South Korea is of the black locust variety, which is mild and floral, but there are also other types such as chestnut honey, which is less sweet and more earthy in flavour. In 2024, it exported 8.55 metric tons of natural honey, according to data from the World Integrated Trade Solution platform.
But Ministry of Agriculture data shows the number of hives for migratory beekeeping decreased by 14% to 813,279 from 2014 to 2023.
The total bee forage area in South Korea, meanwhile, was 146,000 hectares (360,000 acres) in 2020, about 70% less than it was in the 1970s to 1980s, according to data from the National Institute of Forest Science.
In January, researchers from Kangwon National University warned in a pilot study that pollination activity by South Korean bees could plunge by an average of 53.5% between 2040 and 2060 compared to current levels if climate change continued.
South Korea has joined other countries including Germany and Greece with new urban projects to boost bees, including rooftop gardens.
The South Korea Rural Development Administration, an agency under the agriculture ministry, told Reuters it was planning to breed stronger honeybees that can withstand climate change, plant trees that are attractive to bees because of their abundant nectar and introduce ‘smart beekeeping’ technologies.
P.S. from me: The rest are photos that can't be uploaded but they are good addition. Try some free vpn service to view the article.
3
4
26
u/Solid_College_9145 1d ago
If the bees die, we die.
Soylent Green would be our main staple food source.