Published on Monday20thMay2019

'Host a Hive’ Initiative launched on World Bee Day

20190520 Doyle

As party of the celebrations of World Bee Day today 20 May, 2019, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Andrew Doyle T.D., today announced a “Host a hive, help the honey bee” initiative. This initiative aims to encourage forest owners to introduce beehives to their native woodlands and is in partnership with Woodlands of Ireland and the national beekeeping associations. It is also supported by the Native Irish Honeybee Society.

The Minister also confirmed the arrival of honey bees to Agriculture House with hives installed on Agriculture House’s city centre Headquarters on Kildare Street. This joins DAFM’s Backweston campus as the latest DAFM location to install hives.

These initiative are the latest in a series of  DAFM supports to aid and support bees and beekeepers. Under DAFM’s locally-led schemes, we are now investing €1.2m in a four-year pollinator project led by the National Biodiversity Centre. This will work directly with farmers to help them make their farms more pollinator friendly.

This comes on top of other initiatives including annual grants to the Irish National Beekeepers Federations to help their associated members pursue the craft of beekeeping, to support the purchase of bees and to inform the general public about the environmental role that bees play in maintaining Irish biodiversity and crop production. DAFM also operates National Apiculture Programme which includes provision of a free disease diagnostic service for Irish beekeepers and funds specific research projects on bees.