The Murcia regional government has announced aid of more than 1.3 million euro over the next three years aimed at installing beehives in areas of special environmental interest in the Region.
This was announced by the Minister of Water, Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Environment and Emergencies, Antonio Luengo, after holding a meeting with the Association of Beekeepers of the Region of Murcia.
The aid is intended for individuals or legal entities that own beekeeping farms that have their farms registered in the Register of Beekeeping Farms of the Autonomous Community with at least 250 hives and are members of a Beekeepers Association. In addition, it will be necessary for them to develop a counselling and health improvement program for bees, or at least to fight against varroa.
Beekeepers who take advantage of this measure must dedicate 20 percent of their hives to settlements in areas of environmental interest (10 percent if they have more than 1,000 hives) in the period from October to March, staying in those areas during the rest of the year.
The aid will consist of a premium per eligible hive that will settle during the period from April to September in any of the biodiversity areas of the Region of Murcia with environmental interest.
Each beekeeper may be a beneficiary up to a maximum of three settlements. A maximum of 200 hives may be placed in each settlement, with the eligible hives being 20 percent of the total number of hives placed in each settlement (maximum 40 hives per settlement), and a minimum separation of 1.01 km between settlements must be maintained.
The aid will be 58.95 euro per eligible hive, therefore the maximum for a settlement of 40 eligible hives is 2,358 euro.
Currently in the Region of Murcia there are 106,825 beehives registered, which represents 3.60 percent of the total existing at the national level, figures that place Murcia as the third province with the highest census.
