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2000 bees travelling 2000 miles in a flying beehive

Help Alex spread the word about honeybees to young people throughout Greece

A flying beehive is set to educate young people across Greece about the value of honeybees. Support for the extraordinary venture is being sought through crowd-funding on the internet and there are already plans to extend the project to other European countries.

Alexandros Papachristoforou, Vita’s research collaborator at Greek and Cypriot Universities, is raising funds so that he can fly an observation hive of 2000 bees over 2000 miles to schools in remote parts of Greece. His aim is to spread the word to the next generation about the importance of honeybees to our planet. After Greece, he plans to extend his project to other EU countries.

Honeybee health specialists Vita (Europe) Ltd is one of the first companies to make a substantial contribution to the venture and urges anyone with an interest in honeybees to support the venture through the crowd-funding website: http://tinyurl.com/2000beemiles The crowd-funding campaign closes on 23 November 2013.

Every donation will receive special acknowledgement depending on value — from 5€ for your name to appear on a picture of a bee on the aircraft wings to 1000€ for a day’s flight on the aircraft and 3000€ for a two-day flight with accommodation.

Alexandros Papachristoforou with the observation hive on a test flight school visit.

Papachristoforou explained: «Honeybee populations are in decline and every young person needs to understand the implications of that in terms of pollination and diet. We must thank honeybees for one in every 3 mouthfuls we eat! They are responsible for the pollination of many crops, help maintain biodiversity and the balanced ecology of our planet.

«So we are embarking on our FlyBee venture to publicise the plight of honeybees and to educate the next generation. We are appealing to anyone to make a contribution, however small, to help us fly the word. We’ve had a test flight to a school — and the schoolchildren talked about nothing else but honeybees for weeks! It was a great success!»

Jeremy Owen, Director of Vita, said: «We’ve worked with Alex for many years and really appreciate his communication skills. We know he can make a real impact in his country and beyond to ensure that everyone, young and old, will gain greater respect for honeybees.»

Alexandros Papachristoforou is one of the world’s top honeybee researchers and has made important discoveries including the secrets of the honeybee bite, the threat of the Asian Hornet, how honeybees defend against hornets, the nature of swarming, and the impact of Apiguard on varroa and chalkbrood.

Papachristoforou will be flying a two-seater ICP Savannah Ultra light aircraft and funds raised will go towards teaching materials, fuel, accommodation, aircraft maintenance and a new aircraft parachute!

Notes To Editors

About Vita (Europe) Ltd

Vita (Europe) Limited is a mite control and honeybee health specialist. It is the world’s largest dedicated supplier of honeybee health products to the honey and pollination industries. With a rigorous and ethical approach to research and development into honeybee health, Vita has no commercial interests in crop pesticides or crop breeding that may be harmful to honeybees.

Vita researches, develops, and manufactures a range of honeybee health products. Its headquarters are in the UK, it has offices in Italy, France and Russia, and partners across the globe. These products are marketed internationally through a network of 60 distributors in 50 countries.

Vita’s product range to improve honeybee health includes anti-varroa acaricides – Apistan® (outside the USA/Canada) and Apiguard® – chalkbrood and wax moth controls, foulbrood diagnostic kits and health-promoting feeds. Vita products have been registered by more than 60 veterinary authorities.

Vita promotes sustainable beekeeping through Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Its treatments are designed to inhibit the build-up of resistance and wherever possible contain natural compounds and biological controls that are benign to all but the target pests.

Vita invests a very high proportion of its turnover in research and development. Research partners include universities such as Cardiff, Milan, Udine and Naples and institutes such as the Tierhygienisches Institut (Institute of Animal Health) in Freiburg, Germany, the UK Central Science Laboratory and the USDA in America. Vita’s innovative research and development work has been recognised by and has received support from the UK Government.

As a result of its primary research of natural control agents, Vita is currently engaged in new projects exploring mite control in the agriculture, veterinary, and horticulture industries as well as public health and human allergen control.

See www.vita-europe.com for more information.

Follow Vita as «Vita (Europe) Ltd» on  Facebook and Google+ and as «@vitaeuropeltd » on Twitter.

Media Enquiries

Stephen Fleming at Palam Communications
Tel +44 (0) 1635 299116
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