Insect ambassadors: Honeybees buzz on Berlin cathedral

First World Bee Day celebrated with messages of preserving biodiversity

On the roof of Berlin’s cathedral, bees are buzzing. Beekeeper Uwe Marth pulls out a honeycomb produced in the hive he tends beneath the dome of the neo-baroque landmark, a tourist magnet in the German capital — and home to perhaps 30,000 bees. On a warm but windy May day, the insects have been busy feeding on chestnut blossoms, the trees of the Unter den Linden boulevard and flowers on nearby rooftops.

The hive on the riverside Protestant cathedral is one of more than 15 on prominent Berlin buildings that are the brainchild of “Berlin is buzzing!”- an initiative launched in 2010 by biologist Corinna Hoelzer and her husband.

Inspired by an amateur beekeeper who established a bee colony on the roof of a Paris opera house in the 1980s, Hoelzer sought to draw attention to the plight of bees and other insects with prominently placed honeybee colonies.

Bees and other pollinators have been on the decline for more than a decade, and experts blame a combination of factors: insecticides called neonicotinoids or neonics, parasites, disease, climate change and lack of a diverse food supply. A significant part of the human diet comes from plants pollinated by bees — not just honeybees, but hundreds of species of lesserknown wild bees, many which are endangered.

Yesterday was the first World Bee Day — an idea approved by the UN General Assembly in December and initiated by beekeepers in another European country, Slovenia. On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged people in her annual budget speech to parliament “to think about biodiversity and do something good for bees” to mark the day.