Apicluster, an association based in Aix-en-Provence, installs beehives in companies – Engie Green
- The Apicluster association installs beehives in companies, with the objective of raising awareness about the protection of bee colonies.
- With Engie Green, which has made available several of its solar parks in the region, it is helping young beekeepers to set up.
- The solar park provides a secure environment for beehives, which are often victims of theft.
One day, he was offered an empty beehive, and the story began. “My first honey, I made it in my kitchen”, smiles Franck Quenault who has since created the association.
Apicluster, based in Aix-en-Provence. The objective: to set up beehives in a company. There is certainly the biodiversity component that drives this passionate about sustainable development, but one thing interests him even more: work in the beekeeping sector.
“I realized that it is an underdeveloped sector, little supported outside the large producers,” he explains. On the one hand, there are the professional farmers who have 400 beehives and control the lavender fields, with beehives that sometimes stay on trucks. On the other, there is the grandpa who has 20 beehives and will sell his honey on the market to earn additional income, without knowing the hygienic conditions in which it is extracted. “
No question of “greenwashing”
A bit like an Amap, the idea is to set up an economic model by offering bees and hives from local producers with strict specifications. The beehive product then goes back to the company. But there is no question for Franck Quenault to endorse simple “greenwashing”: “It must be active, that I have access to employees, that we can talk about living things, bees, good questions to ask when buying honey in supermarkets, on a market. I want to be able to spread the word and help beekeepers. “
He thus refused the proposal of a giant of the mass distribution, which nevertheless offered him the roofs of all its stores in the region, but without any other action behind.
Hives protected from theft in solar parks
With Engie Green, a real long-term project has been set up. France Nature Environnement has acted as a go-between between Apicluster and the producer of renewable energies, which has around fifty solar parks in the Paca region. In La Verdière, near the Verdon regional natural park, around thirty beehives have been living together since 2019 with the sheep which graze peacefully under the solar panels. “We are here for 40 years to produce electricity, but there is a space that we want to enhance by developing local projects”, explains Romain Verron, development manager at Engie Green.
Thus, it is a farmer of the town, who already makes olive oil and saffron, that Apicluster has also helped to set up as a beekeeper by bringing the first swarms, which she duplicates and sells to present. The bees take advantage of the flowering of the surrounding hills, in thyme and rosemary. Likewise, it was a local shepherd who settled his sheep there eight years ago. “A solar park does not make any noise, there are positive effects on the reproduction of the herd”, assures Romain Verron.
Other projects planned in other parks in the region
Another advantage for the bees: the site, 11 hectares in total, is closed and supervised by its industrial character, a point of importance when we know that the theft of beehives is a real scourge in beekeeping.
At the Charleval solar park, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, beehives were also installed in 2020. There, it is to produce honey. “There are two or three new projects which will be born in the year, in other parks in the region”, announces Romain Verron, who specifies that “the idea is to remain in a human and local dimension”. In other words, there is no question of installing 500 beehives on a site. “You have to multiply the places rather than the quantity in a given space,” explains Franck Quenault. Yes I have bees but there are other insects on the spot. »Starting with the wild bees.