Russia: National beekeeping law has passed

The State Duma of Russia adopted in the third and final reading the law "On beekeeping in the Russian Federation", which regulates the mechanisms of state support for the industry, the fight against counterfeit products, and introduces protective mechanisms to prevent poisoning of bees with chemicals.

The current statistics of the number of bees in the Russian Federation in recent years show negative dynamics. If in 1990 there were 4.5M bee colonies in farms of all categories, then by 2000 their number had decreased to 3.4M, in 2019 there were 3.1M bee colonies.
Mass death of bees in 2019 was noted in 30 regions. The Ministry of Agriculture of Russia and the Rosselkhoznadzor (Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance) named the poisoning of insects with pesticides as the main reason.