Justice For Iceland’s Beekeepers

The beekeepers who received half of their ordered bees dead on arrival have been compensated for the damage incurred.

RÚV reports that the shipping company DHL has made a deal with the beekeepers, in compensation for causing half a shipment of 2 million bees to arrive dead due to a processing error.

In addition to offering an undisclosed sum for the bees themselves, DHL has also offered free shipping for another batch of bees next summer, and free airline tickets for the beekeepers to retrieve them. Egill Rafn Sigurgeirsson, the director of the Icelandic Beekeepers Association, told reporters that he was for the most part satisfied with the deal.

“It helps at least in part, because we need to pay for what we already lost,” he said, adding that a rainy summer has led to a disappointing harvest of honey.

As reported, 2 million bees arrived in east Iceland last June from the Åland Islands, having been temporarily delayed at the airport in Helsinki. Unfortunately, half of them arrived dead. The ones who survived were in less than good condition.

“They were in pretty weak condition,” beekeeper Ólafur Örn Pétursson said at the time. “They were alive, but we have to give it time to see whether they’ll bounce back or not. We don’t know if they’re in some kind of shock that they’ll recover from or not. We will try our best, and hope that the queen does well to produce eggs this summer.”