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Prime Minister Pahor at the 8th meeting of Slovenian beekeepers: “Beekeeping is the poetry of agriculture.”

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia, Borut Pahor, today attended the 8th meeting of Slovenian beekeepers in Velenje where as the patron of honour he addressed the participants and signed a petition to preserve bees as part of the campaign: Let’s preserve bees!

    

(Photo: Vesna Pušnik Brezovnik/STA)

   

In the Velenje Red Hall, Prime Minister Pahor first welcomed the participants and stressed what great honour and pleasure it was for him to be the patron of the 8th meeting of Slovenian beekeepers.  “Like many of you, I also find honey delicious and I eat it for breakfast every day.”  Referring to a recent government session on tourism held in Lipica, he added that the Carniolan bee could be just one of the many stories inspiring tourists in Slovenia since it had been a symbol of Slovenehood for many years. “The Carniolan bee is a status and national symbol that all Slovenes can take pride in, and we will include the beekeeping story in the new development strategy.”
   
He also expressed his concern over the fact that only last year Slovenian beekeepers had lost as much as 20% of their bees. This alone calls for attention to be paid to problems encountered by beekeepers. “For this very reason we adopted the decision to establish a working group that will compile a programme for comprehensive protection of the Carniolan bee. This programme should present the guidelines for the preservation of the Carniolan bee in terms of comprehensive health protection, preservation of the purity of breed as well as the technology, economics, marketing and promotion of beekeeping.”

     

The Prime Minister agreed with the President of the Slovenian Beekeepers’ Association, Boštjan Noč, that “beekeeping is the poetry of agriculture,” and added that “we must support beekeeping at all levels and it must be one of the priorities of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food. Beekeeping is included in the Strategy for the future development of the Slovenian agriculture, which is being prepared by the government, and it will also be part of the long-term development guidelines for the Slovenian agriculture.”

    

By way of conclusion, he again stressed that “the government supports the current campaign of the Slovenian Beekeepers' Association to preserve bees (and the setting up of a council for the preservation of bees), because it will definitely increase the number of Slovenes who act responsibly in their everyday activities (gardening, waste disposal, etc.) thus helping to preserve nature and bees as an animal species that is most frequently endangered by our reckless behaviour.”