Paper short abstract:

Transhumant beekeeping in Spain is threatened by the crises of climate change, fuel prices and parasite Varroa destructor. This paper discusses how the practice of transhumance endows beekeepers with remarkable resilience and how the current crises have nevertheless ushered in new ways of beekeeping

Paper long abstract:

Beekeeping in Extremadura, Spain differs from beekeeping in other parts of Europe by its sheer industrial scale and the practice of transhumance. Like many rural livelihoods around the world, transhumant beekeeping in Spain is being threatened by the effects climate change and the rising cost of fuel, but they are also dealing with the decades-long perpetual crisis of invasive parasitic mite Varroa destructor.

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a small rural village of Fuenlabrada de los Montes in Extremadura, home to one of the largest communities of beekeepers in Europe. Although the village is small, it functions as a central hub in a vast network of beehive sites located all around South-Western Spain. This paper examines how the beekeepers of Fuenlabrada have responded to the three compounding crises of climate, economy and Varroa by changing the way they practice transhumance, while simultaneously demonstrating how their traditional way of practicing of transhumance has endowed these beekeepers with remarkable resilience to withstand these crises, at least thus far. Curiously, while many of the changes coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic itself has had minimal effect on the professional lives of Extremaduran beekeepers. Nevertheless, the pandemic has served as a parallel deathly backdrop to the ever-worsening droughts and Varroa outbreaks that have more than decimated Extremaduran beehives annually since 2018. Can the traditional way of industrial-scale transhumant beekeeping survive, or are these recent crises the final straw that ushers in new kind of beekeeping in Extremadura