May 20 - World Bee Day
17.05.2024World Bee Day is connected with the history of Slovakia. The date of May 20 was set by the United Nations (UN) in honor of the birth of Anton Janša, the founder of modern beekeeping,
World Bee Day is connected with the history of Slovakia. The date of May 20 was set by the United Nations (UN) in honor of the birth of Anton Janša, the founder of modern beekeeping, who was appointed by Maria Theresa as the first director of the Beekeeping school in Vienna. Slovak beekeepers not only celebrate this day, but also traditionally draw attention to the risks that bees and other pollinators face. More than 20,000 beekeepers are engaged in beekeeping in Slovakia, and around 1 million inhabitants are engaged in this sector of agriculture throughout Europe in total. Beekeeping is also an integral part of teaching and research activities at the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra. Recently, Róbert Chlebo from the Institute of Animal Husbandry has represented the University at several important international beekeeping events. In September 2023, at the Apimondie World Beekeeping Congress in Santiago, Chile, his mandate as chairman of the Regional Commission for Europe was extended for another 4 years. In October, he gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress on Sustainable Beekeeping organized by two German beekeeping associations and the German Ministry of Agriculture in Dresden. In the same month, he took part in a Round table called HarmHoney - harmonization of honey testing methodologies to detect adulteration at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission in Geel, Belgium. In February 2024, he was invited to three important events. At the beginning of February 2024, he participated in the Beekeeping Conference "Science in Practice", organized by the University of Natural Sciences in Lublin, Poland, which was attended by over 700 beekeepers. This was followed by the planning of new pan-European research activities at two workshops of the international scientific apidological consortium COLOSS - working groups B-Rap and Monitoring in the Czech Olomouc. The lecture of our Faculty employee was also given at the National Beekeeping Conference and Exhibition in Wels, Austria. Of course, there are also activities for Slovak beekeepers, most recently it was the April Czech-Slovak apidological conference BeeConnected 2024 in Košice, connected with the National Event of the European project B-THENET, of which SUA is also a part. Our University also participates in the European project Insignia EU, in which bee colonies in all 27 EU countries are used for environmental biomonitoring. Bees are an indicator of the state of the environment and ensure the pollination of most agricultural crops and wild plants. Therefore, on the occasion of International Bee Day, let's take a moment to pay tribute to these hardworking creatures.