Plan B: Pakistan beekeepers widen pursuit of flowers

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Sargodha: Under a dry, smoky sky, a beekeeper in Punjab is carefully filled with tens of thousands of flies on the back of a truck.

They will travel together to travel 500 km (about 300 300 miles) in a rising disappointing chase to find moderate temperatures for the production of flower plants, clean air and honey, as climate change and pollution risk the industry.

Malik Hussein Khan stood in a field of orange trees to AFP, which arrived at the end of February at the end of February and continued for only a few weeks.

The bees of Pakistan are usually seasonally transmitted to weather to heat their charges or freeze the cold. Summer is spent in winter in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and central Punjab province.

But the weather samples are unexpectedly created by climate change – combined with the worst pollution in the world – bees colleagues should move more often and travel more.

This winter was marked by increasing, hazardous levels, which the government declared national destruction. Research has found that air pollution can make flowers difficult for flies.

Low rain, in the meantime, failed to clear the wind and mobilized drought warnings for farmers. “This winter fog and fog, I died nearly half the Half bees because they could not fly. It was rarely raining,” Khan said, who frequently moved his flies like every few weeks in January and February.

The bees of 27,000 bees of Pakistan were once fed to diverse plants with reliable rain, which presented a rich source of nectar. Their honey is used in the treatment of local flu, drizzle on sweets, and as a gift.

According to the Government’s Honey Bees Research Institute (HBRI) in Islamabad, since 2022, Pakistan’s honey production has decreased by 15 %.

“Heavy rains and hail storms can eliminate flowers, and in winter flowers, the wrong rains and high temperatures can prevent them from opening,” said Mohammad Khalid, a researcher at the institute.

“When the flowers disappear, the population of the flies decreases as they cannot find the nectar, which in turn reduces the production of honey.”

Bees are globally threat by changing weather patterns, deep farming methods, changes in land use and pesticides. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, their loss is not only the honey trade, but also the risk of food protection, which depends on the germination of the bees.

The bees of Pakistan once produced 22 varieties of honey, but it has been 11 as short of the flower seasons. Three species of four honey bees in the country have been jeopardized. “The places that were green for our flies 30 years ago to fly,” says Moman, 52, says 52 -year -old Honey Trader Sherzman Moman. “We didn’t roam as much as we do now.”

The 2010 floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were almost completely eliminated, but they believe that forest harvesting is the most important long -term change and threat.

Yusuf Khan and his brother, who have been based in Islamabad, have been preparing honey for 30 years, and the neighboring country is moving a short distance around Punjab so that they can catch the best flowers. “Now we go to Sindh to avoid hot temperatures and extreme weather conditions,” Khan told AFP.

“Honey bees are like children, they need a good environment, good environment and proper food to survive.”

Transferring flies comes with its risks. If the weather is too hot, or if the distance is too long, there is a possibility that some bees have to die. This has happened to my flies before, “Khan explained.

On long trips, they should also be fed artificial food because they cannot produce honey while traveling. In recent years, where fuel prices have increased dramatically, it is often expensive for bees to move.

And bees’ peers may face harassment in search of better weather if they stand in areas without the permission of the landlords.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, outside the shiny land, Gul King looks helplessly when the bees appear and disappear from dozens of boxes on the fruitless search of the flowers. He told AFP, “If they do not match the weather conditions, they fight and kill each other.”

The king, whose boxes were also washed into the flood in 2010, and then in 2022, left long distance travel. “Couldn’t find it anywhere. We do not know where to go. “

Some hopes are presented by new technology that aims to keep bees cool, solving the problem how extremely affects pests – if they are not a source of food.

Abdullah Chaudhry, a former bees keeper, has developed new hives with better ventilation based on the rising temperature -productive countries, including Turkey and Australia.

Preliminary signs suggest that the production of boxes increases around 10 %. “Extreme heat does not make the flies comfortable, and instead of making honey, they are busy cooling themselves,” he told AFP at the capital’s safety research center. “These modern boxes are more spacious, and there are different compartments that give bees more space.” Better hives are just one part of the puzzle, though, they recognize. “This is an ongoing war,” Chaudhry told AFP.