We officially started the project with a two day online event held on the 3rd and 4th of December, 2020.

The first day was dedicated to planning our project activities on our 1st Steering Committee, which went very smoothly and successfully.

The official presentation for the public and media was held on the second day and was organised by the lead partner, Agricultural Institute of Slovenia. Approximately 60 attendees were first greeted by the director of Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, prof. Andrej Simončič, PhD. The project was then presented by the coordinator of the project, asst. prof. Janez Prešern, PhD. The statement of the project value to the beekeeping was given by Jože Podgoršek, PhD, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food and on behalf of the EEA and Norway Grants Fund, the attendees were greeted by the Lead Consultant MaŁgorzata Nowak.

Dr Ralph Büchler, Landesbetrieb Landwirtschaft Hessen, Bieneninstitut Kirchhain, Germany rounded up the event with his lecture “The relevance of mating stations for selective breeding of honey bees”, which has highlighted the broader impact of project goals and sparked a lot of interest among the guests of the event.

Although the kick-off meeting was a little different than we are used to, it was still a resounding success.