The rosemary season has ended, but sage is in full bloom.
In the fragrant hills of the Peloponnese in southern Greece, after a few sharp turns along a path, Nikos Reppas’ old car arrives at bee heaven: a field full of violet hyacinths, close to the prehistoric ruins of Mycenae.
Since antiquity, when according to Greek mythology the god of love, Eros, dipped his arrows into honey before shooting them, the golden liquid has been flowing in abundance in this country, free of genetic modification and gleaned from vast, uncultivated lands.
Photo: AFP
And whereas other countries are struggling with high bee mortality, that is one global crisis that has yet to touch debt-plagued Greece.
“Colony collapse disorder is a problem in the United States and some European countries like Germany and Spain... We don’t have this problem in Greece yet,” said Paschalis Harizanis, a professor at the Agricultural University of Athens.
The reason is that Greek beekeepers are still able to keep their activities at a safe distance from commercial farming, and therefore away from pesticides.
Photo: Reuters
“Greek honey owes its unique aroma and taste to the fact that the better part of Greece is home to forests and wild ecosystems, with only 29.32 percent of the land allocated to farming,” the federation of Greek beekeepers’ associations (OMSE) said.
However, this could change.
Last month, Greece voted in Brussels against a ban on pesticides considered harmful to bees and apiculture. The European Commission wants the insecticides banned for use on four major crops — maize (corn), rape seed, sunflower and cotton — in a bid to prevent a disastrous collapse in the bee population.
Photo: Reuters
Experts have isolated three compounds causing concern — clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, known as neonicotinoids — which are present in insecticides produced by pharmaceutical giants Bayer, Syngenta and Cruiser OSR.
However, with 13 votes in favor and nine against, the ban was not adopted, while a new vote could be scheduled before the summer.
“The Greek vote ... was a major disappointment to us and we fail to understand it,” the OMSE said.
“Not banning the pesticides does not help agriculture. It does not help biodiversity, it does not help humans and insects. No one benefits from bees dying,” said Elena Danali, of Greenpeace Greece.
For 46-year-old Nikos Reppas, a beekeeper in Nafplio whose family has been in the apiculture business for 200 years, life is dictated by flowers.
“In February we have the rosemary flowers, then in March come the sage flowers. Then those of oranges, pollen, the flowers of thyme in June, those of chestnut and oak trees in July, heather in September and carob in October,” he said.
This country of about 11 million has 20,000 registered beekeepers, more than 1,500 of whom make their living from beekeeping, Harizanis said.
The country produces between 12,000 and 17,000 tonnes of honey per year, which makes it the second-largest honey producer in Europe after Spain.
However, there is still a long way to go for Greece in terms of world exports, something the indebted country is desperately in need of.
Despite its striking honey production, Greece last year actually imported more honey than it exported (2,000 tonnes versus 800 tonnes).
Instead of selling to others, Greeks prefer to keep their sweet stuff close to home.
Greeks are the top consumers of honey in the world, with an average consumption of 1.7kg per person compared with 0.4 kg in the US, Harizanis said.
“I love this. There is no other way you can do this profession, if you don’t love it,” Reppas said.
“My father is 77 years old going on 78 and still works professionally. A beekeeper is for life. You are born and you die as a beekeeper,” he said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort