Preface

This book will be very useful for beekeepers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, public institutions, private companies, and independent people who look for a way of life and sustenance in bees.

Researchers of the highest academic level and with vast professional trajectory participated in the creation of this book, which contains articles to directly serve as a support to the productive and academic activity and, also in the elaboration of public policies in the field of beekeeping, nationally and globally.

The authors who participated in the preparation of this book are bee specialists from different countries, which ensures a systemic approach to the problems and the way to cope with such problems globally.

Finally, the editor of this book wishes to emphasize that special care has been taken to ensure the high quality of the written articles. Furthermore, he wants to thank and recognize the effort made by all the authors to produce this work. All the chapters published here correspond to results of cutting-edge research in the area of beekeeping worldwide.

> **Ramón Eduardo Rebolledo Ranz** University of La Frontera, Chile

**1**

**Chapter 1**

Worldwide

pollinators and honeybees.

in the world (**Figure 2**)

**1. Introduction**

*Ramón Rebolledo Ranz*

265,000 million dollars for the rest of the world.

Introductory Chapter: Actuality

Both biodiversity and food production rely heavily on the role that play pollinating insects, especially honeybees (*Apis mellifera*), so much so that of the 100 cultivated species that give 90% of the world's food, 70% are pollinated by bees and other native insects. In Europe it is estimated that 84% of commercial crops and 80% of natural plants depend on bee pollination. It is estimated that the contribution of bees to pollination corresponds to 22,000 million euros for Europe and

Nonetheless, bee populations are suffering a sharp decline in their populations, due among other things to loss of environment, inadequate agricultural practices such as monocultures and pesticides, new diseases and parasites, and climate change. On the other hand, the significant increase in the world's population has brought with it a greater demand for food, which is increasingly innocuous and of better quality. To respond to this great demand, it has been necessary to resort to an increasing use of inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and growth regulators, among others, which affect various organisms of the ecosystem including natural

There is a growing concern in regards the colony collapse (CCD) issue over the world. There is a wide range of literature on how to solve this problem and which are the economic and ecological implications this represents. So much so that the European Economic Community has already banned the use of Neonicotinoid pesticides, considered as one of those responsible for the loss of hives in the world. Despite the aforementioned problems faced by beekeepers, the commercial exchange of honey has had an important increase of 12% annually in its value and 8% in quantity, being China, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico, and Germany the main honey exporting countries (**Figure 1**), while the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Japan are the main importing countries of honey

The honey production of bees has shown an important growth in the last decades with 1,860,712 tons (**Figure 3**), growth mainly given by the Asian continent. On the other hand, the number of hives has had a significant increase

In most of the continents, there have been few significant changes in honey production in the last 10 years, with the exception of Asia which has shown strong growth due to the important influence of China. However, even though there is growth in terms of the number of hives and the production of honey, new problems have appeared in the world concert, such is the case of adulterated and counterfeit

(**Figure 4**), this being higher than the 80 million hives.

and Trends of Beekeeping

### **Chapter 1**
