What gives Europe!?!

[CJ]

Where are you hiding all of your honey bees my European friends???  :'(
My Wife and I are over here for a 3 month holiday and I've been hanging to see bees and bee hives everywhere as you guys head into spring, but so far after a week in Germany and a few days in Czech I haven't seen a single hive (even after a 3 hour bus trip through nothing but canola fields) and have only seen ONE bee! and I'm pretty sure it was a bumble bee at that.
What gives?

[Spear]

If you are in Heidelberg, go up to the castle. A few beeks in the beek club I attend keep their hives around there.

[skatesailor]

There is a a sidebar in this article that addresses loss in the UK.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2628372/Have-scientists-solved-mystery-dying-bees-Hives-exposed-insecticide-ARE-likely-suffer-colony-collapse.html

[johnnie1uk]

Here in the Murcia region of Spain, most of the hives here are just plonked down to give the bees a home for pollination of the fruit trees, I have just started out with a couple of Langstroths and looking forward to them filling those combs for me!

[greenbtree]

Well, they have to be there somewhere, a friend of mine was there last summer and accidently ran into a beekeepers parade, of all things.

JC

[ThomasGR]

Come to Greece!
There are about 1.600.000 beehives in a such small country. Its impossible to hide them.
Beehives density in Greece is about 12 colonies every single square kilometer, no1 in Europe. In US density is about 0,4.
It is obvious why pollination services are almost useless here... bees are everywhere anyway. There also many species of wild bees.

[CJ]

Wow Thomas, that's awesome!! Not sure we will make it your way this trip but definitely something I will need to see for myself one day!

We've spent the last week traveling through Austria now and still haven't spotted a single bee hive - found loads of bees in all the wildflowers though, and the bumble bees are huge!!  :-D Unfortunately for me I decided it was a good idea to crawl through some of those wild flowers on all fours to take some pictures... turns out they have LOTS of stinging nettle here too  MY GOD IM ITCHY!?! lol

[Snowhitsky]

If the laws in Germany/Austria/Czech Republic are the same as in Spain, hives cannot be placed within 25-700 metres of roads/houses  (distance depends on whether it's a rural track or dual-carriageway). Another thing to take into account is that easily accessible fields (ie the ones you see from the roads) are often forage deserts for bees. You tend to get better pasture in more out of the way places.

I travel around France and Spain a lot for my job and it's only since I've taken up beekeeping that I've noticed how few flowers are left in the countryside where intensive agriculture is practised.