“Hm, something like that.” Christoph Richert studies the grate he pulled out from under the beehive. Yellow sprinkles and a dead bee lie on it. “But not a Varroa mite,” he explains. Cautious joy crosses his face. Now in winter, when the bees are hanging in clusters in their hives, brooding and must not be disturbed, as a beekeeper you have to be prepared – for the hives to be opened in spring, when thousands of dead bees may be uncovered. “Something like that is incredibly sad,” says the 76-year-old. “But at the moment I only see discarded tops of honeycomb from newly hatched bees. That speaks for lively breeding activity.”
How a beekeeper protects his bees from climate change and pests – Bavaria
