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In Pictures

Gallery|Environment

In Pictures: Is avocado boom to blame for bee deaths in Colombia?

Apiarists in Colombia suspect pesticides used in commercial avocado and citrus farming is killing the bees.

A poisoned beehive in Santa Fe de Antioquia. [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]
Published On 2 Mar 20212 Mar 2021
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For the second time in two years, Gildardo Urrego is scooping up piles of dead bees after an invisible evil invaded his hives in northwest Colombia, wreaking havoc among his swarms.

Urrego has no proof, but he suspects the culprit is pesticides that have been fuelling a commercial avocado and citrus boom in the country.

Hundreds of hives have been killed off in Colombia in recent years, and some investigations have pointed to fipronil, an insecticide banned for use on crops in Europe and restricted in the United States and China.

It is used to control all manner of insects, including ants and ticks, and has been blamed for several bee massacres around the world.

Urrego’s apiary in Colombia’s Antioquia Department produces honey flavoured with pollen from nearby passion fruit orchards. In 2019, he lost 10 of his 19 hives.

This time, he said, one-third of his 12 hives were wiped out – a loss of some 160,000 of the industrious little pollinators.

“There is a theory that, yes, this is due to poisoning, there are some crops around here that perhaps have not managed their agrochemicals well and so this area was affected,” he told AFP.

In recent years, bees in North America, Europe, Russia, South America and elsewhere have started dying off from “colony collapse disorder”, a mysterious scourge blamed partly on pesticides along with mites, viruses and fungi.

The UN warns that nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction.

Beeekeeper Abdon Salazar checks a healthy beehive at his apiary in Calarca, Quindio department, about 277km (172 miles) east of Colombian capital Bogota. [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]
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Salazar points the finger of blame at fipronil for the deaths of bees. About 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world, according to a 2016 study, depend on pollinators, mainly bees. [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]
Beekeeper Gildardo Urrego checks a poisoned beehive at his apiary in Santa Fe de Antioquia, about 480km (300 miles) northwest of Bogota. Beekeepers in the region are increasingly having to clear out mounds of dead bees from their apiaries, which are surrounded by avocado and citrus plantations in an exceptionally fertile and biodiverse part of the world. [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]
In recent years, bees in North America, Europe, Russia, South America and elsewhere have started dying off from "colony collapse disorder", a mysterious scourge blamed partly on pesticides along with mites, viruses and fungi. [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]
The UN warns that nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, are at risk of global extinction. [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]
A man fumigates an avocado plant near an apiary in Calarca, Quindio department. Last year, the state-owned Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA) was notified by beekeepers of 256 suspected hive poisonings in Quindio alone. [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]
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A passionfruit plantation near an apiary in Santa Fe de Antioquia. [Joaquin Sarmiento/AFP]


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