"I realized that after a week of confinement, I was already late compared to the daily nectar returns from my foragers", testifies on Europe 1 the beekeeper Pierre Stéphan, installed in Lichtenberg, in Lower France Rhine and whose honey harvests exploded as human activity decreased. 

INTERVIEW

It is an unexpected effect of confinement: measures to restrict human activity have left the field open to nature ... And therefore to bees. "I realized that after a week, I was already late compared to the daily return of nectar from my foragers", testifies on Europe 1 Pierre Stéphan, beekeeper in Lichtenberg, in the Bas-Rhin. 

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"Continuous round trips, all day"

Installed for twenty years and owner of 300 hives, Pierre Stéphan observes the most important effect "on a site where there are hiking trails, where there is logging, where there are cycle paths and 'used a lot of bikes, tourists, traffic ". Confinement effectively shut down all activity. "The bees are undisturbed and go back and forth all day long."

Result: a production of honey from spring flowers - hawthorn, dandelion, willow - more than boosted. "On some sites I had to add racks, compartments in the hives," explains the beekeeper. On one of his apiary, Pierre Stéphan even harvested up to 40 kg of honey per hive. "Usually, I'm around 10-15 kg." 

"I even had to collect bees"

The beekeeper emphasizes that the favorable Alsatian weather may also have played a role in this increase. But it is certain that it is above all linked to containment. "Bees can be hit by cars, run over by pedestrians ... These are things we don't suspect," he explains. "If you have a disappearance of foragers who do not return to the hive, it creates an imbalance."

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On March 17, on the contrary, he observed "much more vigorous hives, full of bees, which overflow". "I even had to collect bees to make swarms," ​​concludes Pierre Stéphan.