Italy Has 1,000 Bee Species and a Beekeeping Tradition as Old as Its Cuisine. Both Need Protecting.
Today is World Bee Day, the United Nations observance established in 2018 to draw global attention to the role of bees and other pollinators in sustaining ecosystems, food security and the natural world. This year’s theme, chosen by the FAO, is Bee Together for People and the Planet: a partnership that sustains us all.
For Italy, the day carries particular resonance. More than 1,000 bee species have been recorded in Italy alone, out of approximately 2,000 across Europe and 20,000 worldwide. That extraordinary biodiversity makes Italy one of the most important countries on the continent for pollinator conservation, and one of the most exposed to the consequences of pollinator decline.
Why Bees Matter More Than Most People Realise
Around 75 percent of the world’s leading food crops depend at least partly on pollinators, including coffee, almonds, apples and tomatoes. Remove the bees and the consequences extend well beyond honey: entire agricultural systems, wild plant communities and the food chains that depend on them begin to unravel. In Italy, where food culture is also agricultural culture, the connection between a healthy pollinator population and what appears on the table is direct and measurable.
Bees are a fundamental component of biodiversity, alongside bumblebees, butterflies, hoverflies and many other insects. Together they ensure the reproduction of thousands of plant species and contribute significantly to global food security. But their populations are increasingly threatened by habitat loss, excessive pesticide use, climate change and the spread of invasive species.
Italy’s Beekeeping Tradition
Italy has one of Europe’s oldest and most active beekeeping traditions. The country produces a wide range of honeys tied to specific landscapes and flowering plants: acacia from the Po Valley, chestnut from the Apennines, citrus from Sicily and Calabria, wildflower varieties from Alpine meadows. Italian honey is a geographical product as much as an agricultural one, its character shaped by the plants that grow in specific places and the bees that move between them.
That tradition is under pressure. Intensive agriculture in the Po Valley, pesticide use in the fruit-growing regions of the north, urban expansion and the loss of wildflower meadows across the peninsula have all reduced the quantity and quality of forage available to managed and wild bee populations alike. The varroa mite, an introduced parasite that has devastated honey bee colonies across Europe, remains a chronic problem for Italian beekeepers despite decades of management efforts.
What Is Being Done
New conservation initiatives are emerging across Italy. Youth-led projects funded through the European Fund for Youth Action on Pollinators, co-funded by the EU and implemented by IUCN Save Our Species, include DNA-based pollinator monitoring programmes and forest pollinator research projects based in Italy, contributing directly to Red List assessments and EU Species Action Plans for threatened pollinators.
Italy’s WBA Biodiversity Association, marking World Bee Day 2026, has called on citizens to take concrete action: creating flower-rich spaces, reducing the use of chemical products in gardens and on balconies, supporting sustainable beekeeping and participating in citizen science initiatives that contribute to pollinator monitoring.
What You Can Do in Rome
The city itself is more bee-friendly than its reputation suggests. Rome’s parks, particularly Villa Borghese, Villa Ada, the Appia Antica and the green corridors along the Tiber, support significant pollinator populations, and the city’s relatively mild climate allows flowering plants to provide forage for much of the year.
Practical steps are simple: plant native flowering species on balconies and terraces rather than ornamental varieties with little nectar value, avoid pesticides entirely in domestic gardens, buy honey from local Italian beekeepers rather than industrial blends, and leave a patch of unmown grass if you have one. None of this requires expertise. It requires only the decision to do it.
World Bee Day is an awareness exercise, and awareness exercises can feel thin. But the numbers behind this one are not thin. A third of what we eat depends on the work of pollinators. Italy has more than a thousand bee species. The question is not whether they matter. The question is whether we will act before the answer becomes academic.
