Live and Let Bee: Training for Ecological Beekeeping Erasmus Project

Project Title

Live and Let Bee: Training for Ecological Beekeeping

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; Environment and climate change; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Beekeeping is considered one of the most important agricultural activities around the world. Most of world’s flowering plants, including 80% of the world’s species of food plants, rely on pollinators for reproduction. There are clear indications of a loss of wild and domestic pollinators with a number of negative ecological and economic impacts.

“Live and Let Bee: Training for Ecological Beekeeping” Project aimed an exchange of know-how, sharing best practices, providing trainings, dissemination of pollinator-friendly knowledge and creating awareness to tackle this problem. The project strived to reach out to both rural and urban populations, since the problem and the solution lie in both places.

The project partners were:
– Bugday Association for Supporting Ecological Living, Turkey: aims to protect and sustain traditional production methods, to create an ecological consciousness and sensitivity in daily life, on an individual level and in society as a whole, to offer solutions to the problems arising from the irreversible destruction of valuable ecological systems and to support living life in harmony with nature.
– Smart Beeing Foundation, The Netherlands: is working on preservation and strengthening of the bee population in its natural habitat.
– The Natural Beekeeping Trust, UK: aims to educate the public about bee-centred, chemical-free sustainable beekeeping methods and to develop new understandings and ways of relating to the bee that work with the natural behaviour of the creature.
– Aronija, Association of Producers of Organic Products, Macedonia: aims to supply organic food which improves the health and the ability for active life; to contribute to protection of the environment and to socio-economic development.

Main activities of the project were:
– A select group of beekeepers, academicians and staff from the partner organisations visited the good practices in the 4 partner countries and had on-site trainings. The traditional beekeeping methods still being practiced especially in Macedonia and Turkey was documented with photographs, videos and in a written manner. This documentation is used in preparing the educational resources.
– Educational resources were prepared for the following target groups: Beginners & Hobbyists, Beekeepers, Consumers & City Dwellers, Municipalities, Policy makers
– A web site was designed and developed including the educational resources.
– An Ecological Beekeeping Training was organised in Izmir, Turkey with the participation of 37 trainees from 4 partner countries.
– An Ecological Beekeeping Conference was organised in Izmir, Turkey, to which 273 participants attended.

Results of the project are:
– Review and documentation of existing ecological beekeeping methods in videos, field trip reports, partner country reports
– Educational resources on ecological beekeeping
– Web site for Open Educational Resources
– Ecological Beekeeping Training in Izmir, Turkey
– Ecological Beekeeping Conference in Izmir, Turkey

Impacts of the project are:
– The beekeepers visiting other partner countries for on-site training learned about each others conditions,r their practices, how they coped with challenges. They gained new perspectives. Afterwards, some started new initiatives in their country (eg Bee School in Tangala Farm, Fethiye, Turkey), some reviewed and revised their practices and some started to disseminate what they have learned.
– Beekeeping methods in partner countries are documented in reports, videos and photos.
– British and Dutch partners (NBKT and Smart Beeing) have started organisation of an international beekeeping event, “Learning from the Bees”, that will be held in the Netherlands in September 2018.
– The dissemination activities carried out during the project significantly increased awareness of the situation of bees, their importance in nature and food chain, what can be done for the bees in partner countries.
– Buğday Association got into contact with Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe through the project and starting collaborating with PAN regarding a a campaign to ban neonicotinoids, a kind of pesticide that has a high risk factor for the bees and other pollinators. Buğday recently became a member of PAN Europe and will work towards reducing pesticide use in Turkey.
– The Ecological Beekeeping Training and Ecological Beekeeping Conference in Izmir, Turkey brought together various beekeepers and a wide range of other stakeholders together. The events were the first ones that focused on ecological beekeeping in Turkey. They helped creation of a network of beekeepers who work together to overcome local challenges, share information and learn from each other’s practices.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 142488,85 Eur

Project Coordinator

BUGDAY EKOLOJIK YASAMI DESTEKLEME DERNEGI & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Assosiation of producers of organic products “Aronija”
• Natural Beekeeping Trust
• Stichting Smart Beeing