SLU Honey Bee Research Centre
Our mission is to support and strengthen research activities on honey bees in Sweden. We maintain beekeeping infrastructure at SLU’s Uppsala campus with honey bee colonies used to facilitate research, but also education, collaborations, and open house activities
Importance of honey bees at SLU
Honey bees are the only insect kept and managed as livestock for producing food, honey, for human consumption. As a global commodity, honey can be produced commercially, having an international trade market, or more commonly at a hobby-scale.
As pollinators, honey bees are an intrinsic part of nature, maintaining ecosystem health and functioning and supporting plant and wildlife biodiversity. But they are also the dominate species used for pollination-dependent crop production of economically and nutritionally highly valuable crops, making honey bees essential for the quality of our diets and for maintaining global food security.
Because of their importance, humans have practiced beekeeping for thousands of years. The sustainability of beekeeping is intimately linked to a sustainable future, and is connected to the many of the research themes at SLU, including animal health, agricultural production, and ecology.
Threats to honey bee health, survival and management are a major concern for human society. Through our research and diverse activities, finding solutions to mitigates these threats is a key goal of the Honey Bee Research Centre.
