Bees swarm Berlin, where beekeeping is booming

BERLIN — They go to the rescue when others would flee. They are the Schwarmfänger, Berlin’s 30 or so swarm catchers, on call to collect honeybees by the thousands when they gather where peo- ple do not want them.

This year, the Schwarmfänger have been very busy.

While much of the Western world is worried about bees dying off, Berlin and other big German cities have the oppo- site problem — there are too many hives, because of the rising popularity of urban beekeeping. Shoppers at Berlin’s finer organic stores and public markets are increas- ingly seeing locally grown honey for sale.

“It’s quite hip at the moment, people put up a hive on their balcony somewhere and think they are doing some- thing for nature,” said Alfred Krajewski, 59, one of the volunteer swarm catchers.

Many newcomers to beekeeping mistakenly see it as a fairly easy hobby, when in reality they have neither the knowledge nor the time for it. Like anyone who gets fed up with a lousy landlord, the bees leave, turning up in seething clumps under eaves, on lampposts or in backyards — and a call goes out to some- one like Krajewski.

Berlin has more than 20 hives per square mile belonging to registered beekeepers, and an unknown number tended by people who are not registered, according to Benedikt Polaczek, who heads the city’s beekeepers’ association, which helps organize the swarm catchers.

“We have too many people who keep bees who don’t do enough for their bees,” said Polaczek, who teaches bee- keeping at the Free University of Berlin. He is careful to make a distinction between that has too many bees, they trained beekeepers and those can harm biodiversity, he said. who do not know enough to They may deplete the nectar do it properly. that wild insects depend on,

The rest of Germany has and diseases spread more fewer than six registered readily among managed spehives per square mile, short cies than wild ones. of the number it should have Instead, he said, city dwellfor agricultural needs, he ers should pressure authorisaid, and in Brandenburg, the ties to keep parks more wild state that surrounds Berlin, during the full life cycle of the figure is less than three. insects, not just when wild

Around the world, “colony flowers are in their prime, collapse disorder” has sig- and to avoid using pesticides. nificantly shrunk honeybee Polacek teaches courses populations over the last two on beekeeping for laypeodecades, a crisis that has been ple. In the past he would not blamed on an array of causes, have more than 40 people including pesticides, herbiin a class, but last year one cides, monoculture farming course received more than and a warming climate that 200 applicants. favors parasites like mites. In addition to poor care,

The bees are used to polweather and disease make linate crops, so their decline bees more likely to swarm poses a threat to world food out of their hives in search supplies. of a new home.

Many wild creatures that To an experienced bee pollinate crops and other catcher, collecting them is plants have also declined, rather straightforward, said including wild bee species, Krajewski, who is a retired moths, butterflies, wasps, bee- telecommunications worker tles, bats and birds. They may and part-time model. He has be threatened by the same been catching feral swarms forces as honeybees, and their in Berlin for 25 years. living space is reduced every He wears a white beekeepyear by human expansion. er’s suit, and during weeks

Campaigns have called on when he has a job modeling people to protect the honeyfor photos that will show his bee, but scientists warn that hands, he also wears gloves. focusing on one particular He sprays a swarm with water insect is misleading and even to make the bees heavy and counterproductive. sluggish, and places his bee

“The honeybee is one of trap, a box, below them. 20,000 species of bees,” said Then he tries to knock insects Jonas Geldmann, a researcher into the box and shuts the lid. at the University of CamIf the queen falls into the bridge. “It’s a species that, box, the rest follow and stay at least in the European setwith her. If she does not, the ting, is extinct as a wild spebees leave through a hole cies. It’s another cow or a in the trap, and Krajewski chicken — a managed species.” repeats the procedure. The

Honeybees provide a valu- bees are isolated in the box able service to humans, but for several days to make sure despite what many people they are not sick, then given believe, studies have not found to a beekeeper for permathat raising them contributes nent resettlement. to biodiversity, Geldmann Robert Gummi, 44, and a Cambridge colleague another of Berlin’s swarm wrote in an article published catchers, blames the increase last year in Science magazine. in swarms on this year’s

In fact, in an area like Berlin extremely warm weather.