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TRADYCYJNE BARTNICTWO PODSUMOWANE (2)

The two-year project, “Traditional Beekeeping: Rescue of Wild Bees in the Woods
” is a joint endeavour of the following forest districts: Augustów, Browsk, Maskulińskie
and Supraśl. The Warsaw University of Life Sciences and the Faculty of Law of the University of Białystok were cooperative partners of the project. The completion of this unique project was possible thanks to funding from the Norway Grants with the support of funds from the the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism of the 2009-2014 and as part of the Operational Programme PL02 “The Protection of the Biological Diversity and Ecosystems”.
The introductory lecture was given by Beata Madras-Majewska, the professor of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences
 who discussed the condition of healthful bees colonizing holes in trees and logs located in 4 forest inspectorates involved in the project. Next
, Łucja Skonieczna from the Animal Breeding and Insemination Centre in Bydgoszcz gave a speech on species affiliation of bees from these tree hives. The lecture part finished with the discussion on the selected controversial issues concerning the impact of tree beekeeping activities on the possibility of the restoration of wild bees. This talk was chaired by Dariusz Ostrowski and Marta Czech, PhD students from the Faculty of Law of the University of Białystok.
At the project completion ceremony, there were also employees of the Szulgan-Tasz national park in Bashkortostan who for two years have supported foresters working on the project with knowledge and experience.
The project “Traditional Beekeeping: Rescue of Wild Bees in the Woods” involved multifaceted undertakings aimed at restoring tree beekeeping and the population of wild bees colonizing the areas of four forests of: Augustów, Białowieża, Knyszyń and Pisz.
One of the most important objectives of the project was raising social awareness of the role of bees in the ecosystem. Nowadays, when bees are dying in large numbers on each continent, the project has been of great significance. The remaining objectives of the project are, among other things, creating educational trails, training potential tree beekeepers, conducting research (mainly concerning genetics of wild bees) and legal analyses as well as building tree and log hives.
At the meeting, all project partners recounted activities they managed to complete. These are mainly special educational programmes. Exhibitions, educational points and trails were created in all forest districts taking part in the project. Publications in the form of guide books and albums encourage people to check the prepared forest activity offer. In order to promote restoring tree beekeeping, there was a special website launched which served as a data base and a source of the latest news. Thanks to cameras installed next to log hives in the Augustów and Browsk Forest Districts, we could monitor the life of bees live.
The project which is ending now has resulted in the restoration of the whole colonies of wild bees, protection of Augustów bee species which is the only wild species of bees preserved in Europe and, what important, development of legal basis for tree beekeeping.
Although the project objective was to construct two tree hives and three log hives in each forest district participating in the project, there was a total of 35 created. The largest number is in the Augustów Forest District: four tree hives and sixteen log hives. Polish foresters were helped by beekeepers from the national park, Szulgan-Tasz in Bashkortostan in the Ural in Russia in restoring traditional beekeeping.  They were taught how to build first beehive logs
 and beehives as well as how to take care of wild bees. This knowledge has been used well as in all forest districts
 half of all prepared tree and log hives have been already colonized by bees.
Summing up, all objectives of the project have been successfully achieved, what is reason to be pleased. However, the most important fact is that
 a large part of the society could see the great significance of bees
 to the environment.
Albert Einstein claimed that “if the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live”. We hope that thanks to such projects, this eminent physicist’s prophecy will be never fulfilled.
Text: Anna Jakimiuk, Regional Directorate of State Forests in Białystok
Photo: Roman Rogoziński, Augustów Forest District