Sarghoda: under a dry sky and Smoggy, a beekeeper in Punjab carefully load boxes full of tens of thousands of bees in the rear of a truck.
Together will travel 500 kilometers (about 300 miles) in an increasingly desperate persecution of finding flowers with flowers, clean air and moderate temperatures for honey production as climate change and pollution threaten the industry.
“We move the boxes according to where the weather is good and the flowers bloom,” said Malik Hussain Khan AFPstanding in a field of oranges whose flowers arrived weeks at the end of February and lasted only for a few weeks.
Pakistani beekeepers generally move seasonally to avoid their suffocating heat or ice cream loads.
The summers are spent on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and winters in the center of Punjab.
But climatic patterns are unpredictable by climate change, along with some of the worst contamination of the world, the beekeepers meaning must move more frequently and travel even more.
This winter was marked by level and dangerous Smog levels that the Government declared a national disaster. Research has found that air pollution can make it difficult for bees to local flowers.
The decreased rain, meanwhile, failed to clear the asphyxiated air and caused drought warnings for farmers.
“Almost half of my bees died when the Smog and the fog hit this winter because they could not fly. There was hardly any rain,” said Khan, who moved his bees as often as every few weeks in January and February.
Chopped honey varieties
The bees of the 27,000 beekeepers in the country once had a diverse foliage fed by reliable rains, offering a rich source of nectar.
Its honey is used in flu remedies, spray on sweets and occurs as gifts.
However, since 2022, honey production has decreased by 15%, according to the Honey Bee (HBRI) Research Institute of the Government in the Islamabad capital.
“Heavy rains and hail storms can destroy flowers, and erratic rains and high temperatures during the winter flowering season can prevent them from flourishing,” said Muhammad Khalid, a researcher at the institute.
“When the flowers disappear, the bees population decreases because they cannot find nectar, resulting in a reduced production of honey.”
Bees are threatened worldwide by changing climate patterns, intensive agricultural practices, the change in land use and pesticides.
Its loss threatens not only in honey trade, but also food security in general, with a third of the world’s food production depends on the pollination of bees, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Pakistan’s bees once produced 22 honey varieties, but that has collapsed to 11 as the flowering seasons shorten. Three of the four species of honey bees are in danger.
“The places that used to be green for our bees to fly 30 years ago, they are no longer,” says the 52 -year -old Honey merchant, Sherzaman Momaan, who speaks with tenderness about his winged charges.
“We didn’t move as much as we do now.”
His hives were almost completely eliminated by the floods of 2010 in KP, but believes that deforestation is the most significant change and threat.
Yousaf Khan and his brother, based in Islamabad, have been producing honey for 30 years, moving short distances around neighboring areas to catch the best flowers.
“Now, we reach Sindh (province) due to warmer temperatures and to escape extreme climatic conditions,” Khan told AFPreferring to areas of up to 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away.
“Bees are like babies, they need a good atmosphere, a good environment and an adequate meal to survive.”
‘Fight and kill’
Moving bees comes with their own risks.
“If it’s very hot, or if the distance is too long, there is the possibility that some bees can die. My bees has happened before,” Khan explained.
On long trips, they must also be fed with artificial foods because they cannot produce honey while traveling.
Moving so often is expensive for beekeepers in a country where fuel prices have increased dramatically in recent years.
And beekeepers looking for a better climate can face harassment if they are established in areas without permission from the owners.
On an arid land on the outskirts of Chambanni in KP, Gul Badshah observes impotent as the bees appear and disappear from dozens of boxes in an unsuccessful search for flowers.
“They fight and kill if the climatic conditions do not suit them,” he said AFP.
Badshah, whose boxes were also dragged into floods in 2010, and again in 2022, has stopped traveling long distances.
“There is no place to find. We don’t know where to go.”
Great bees
Some hopes are offered by the new technology aimed at keeping fresh bees, addressing the problem of how extreme temperatures affect insects, if not their food source.
Abdullah Chaudry, a former beekeeper, developed new hives with improved ventilation based on the inspiration of other honey -producing nations that deal with growing temperatures, including Türkiye and Australia.
The first signs suggest that the boxes improve production by around 10%.
“The extreme heat does not make the bees feel comfortable and, instead of making honey, they remain busy cooling,” he said AFP at the capital’s apiculture research center.
“These modern boxes are more spacious and have different compartments that give more space to bees.”
However, improved hives are only part of the adaptation puzzle, he acknowledges.
“It’s a continuous battle,” said Chaudry AFP.
