THE PROGRAM

Creation of BtS, partners

The Bee the Solution! program is the largest pollinator protection program in Hungary. It was launched in 2020 with the cooperation of state and professional organizations, as well as the private sector, with the wide-range involvement of the Hungarian population.

The organizer and copyright owner of the program is Pressinform PR agency, its strategic partners are Pannon Ertéktár Zrt., the National Hungarian Bee-keeping Association, Agrármarketing Centrum, the Hungarian Natural History Museum, NetMédia and the TV2 Group.

Mission, goals

Our goals with the Bee the Solution! program are:

to direct attention to the mass destruction of bees and other pollinators, which play a vital part in the Earth’s food production, and the threatening food crisis as a result;
to improve the status of the beekeeping industry, which ensures the livelihood of twenty thousand Hungarian families,
to encourage the consumption of Hungarian honey and a healthy diet.

The problem

Pollination is indispensable for the production of seven out of ten food products. Pollinators are facing mass extinction worldwide, primarily as a result of climate change and the use of chemicals in agriculture. In the long term, the extinction of pollinators threatens with a global food crisis, which is why the UN and other international organizations are acting more and more vigorously to protect biodiversity and to ban agricultural chemicals that are dangerous to pollinators.

The situation in Hungary is not so dire yet, and this is mainly due to the beekeepers. The domestic bee population is one of the largest in Europe in terms of area, and we export nearly two-thirds of our abundant honey production. Bees are perhaps the busiest little creatures in the world, they play a decisive role in the pollination of crops and the development of the Hungarian agriculture and food industry, especially in these current times, threatened by external global food crises.

Awards, shortlists

The program’s campaigns and activities have reached five million people so far. Our exhibitions have already been viewed by more than one hundred and fifty thousand people – including tens of thousands of students. About seven thousand entries were submitted for the kindergarten competitions from all over the country and beyond the border, and in addition, 100,000 educational publications and 20,000 sold books have also supported the wide spread of knowledge.

Our program has won multiple important domestic and international awards.

In 2023, we received the second highest prestigious professional acknowledgement of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) Golden World Awards besides the main award, the Global Sustainability Special Award, which is awarded by an international jury to the entry that helps the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals the best in the world.

In 2022, at the Apimondia International Apicultural Congress, two of the program’s books were awarded: the cookbook by Magdi Rúzsa and József Vida, “Buzzing in the Kitchen…” received a silver medal. Adél Várszegi’s storybook for preschoolers, “Buzzing along woods and meadows – The adventures of Fluffball and Sophie” won a bronze medal.

At IPRA’s 2021 regional Eventiada–Golden World Awards competition, we won the main prize in the category of support for urgent action against climate change and its effects, and our entry was selected as one of the four best Eastern European programs of the year.

In Hungary, we won the “Best environmental responsibility” category at the CSR Hungary Award 2021 competition, as well as the special award of TRADE Magazine.

Also in 2021, our program was recognized with a special award for environmental issues at the Good Doing CSR Award.