Participating projects

Bee Wallonie is a project subsidised by the Walloon Region (Belgium) which associates two partners: CARI asbl and CRA-W. The project is planned for the period from 01/01/2017 to 31/12/2022. It finances 1.5 FTEs. The Walloon Region has entrusted CARI asbl and CRA-W with the mission of supervising, promoting and developing beekeeping in Wallonia.

The CARI asbl is in charge of part 1 of the project "Support and development of the beekeeping sector". It is also in charge of part of part 2 "Bee health, agriculture and environment", the other part coming under the attributions of the CRA-W.

Under the second part of the project, CARI asbl and CRA-W, in collaboration with the HoneybeeValley, have historically participated to the collection of winter mortality data following the methodology proposed by the COLOSS Association, including the FAB-BBF (Federation Apicole Belge - Belgische Bijenhoudersfederatie). More information of the global COLOSS project here.

EPILOBEE was the first active epidemiological surveillance program implemented in 17 EU Member States, over 2 consecutive years (from autumn 2012 to summer 2014), following a harmonised protocol based on the EU reference laboratory guidelines. EFSA requested a statistical analysis on the EPILOBEE dataset to establish associations between colony mortalities and some factors including disease prevalence, the context of beekeeping and the apiary geographical distribution. The data set published is the result of the data cleaning and categorization performed on the EPILOBEE original dataset regarding winter mortality. The dataset comprises 4758 observations from apiaries across Europe.

The aim of this project is to provide real field data from different environments and locations of Europe for validation of the ApisRAM model (OC/EFSA/SCER/2016/03). This model is developed to assist in the evaluation of the risks of pesticides to honeybee colonies in a multistressor environment. It allows to extrapolate the impact that may be shown at the individual bee to colony level. 

National Beekeeping Programmes are subsidies provided to the beekeeping sector for its development. They come from the Common Agricultural Policy budget. In the Wallonia region of Belgium, the main beekeeping leaders (UFAWB, URRW and CARI) defined twenty years ago the bases of operation of what was called "the Honey programme". In order to be able to keep the relevance of the actions undertaken, they defined the mode of operation of the Steering Committee, now renamed the "Honey Committee", which is responsible for defining the lines of work and adapting them according to the new requirements. Provincial representation (ideally two representatives per province and for Brussels) and one representative from each of the associations were needed to improve the transmission of information between the different structures. The election is democratic and direct, which is why each beekeeper present at the "Namur day" (a day where the annual activities are presented to the regional beekeeping sector) has the opportunity to elect the candidates of his/her choice. Candidatures are open to everyone who is willing to invest in the follow-up of the programme. This programme is executed by the CARI where its permanent staff team makes sure to implement the activities defined by the Honey Committee.

More on how the European Beekeeping Programmes are applied in Wallonia here.

More on the National Beekeeping Programmes of different EU countries here.