Argentine Beekeepers' Magazine

(APIMONDIA PRESIDENT, May 2nd, 2022) These past two years of COVID have made it difficult to plan and carryout our 47 th biennial Apimondia Congress that was scheduled to be held in Ufa, Russia in September of 2021. Then came the invasion of sovereign Ukraine by Russian troops which caused us to cancel plans to meet in Ufa in 2022. As Apimondia, we work to be apolitical and follow UN guidelines to recognize countries and set our fees. We have major reasons that require us to meet and hold a General Assembly. Apimondia is required by our statues to elect officers and to hear bids and then vote for future Congress venues. After cancelling the Congress scheduled in Ufa, we needed to select a new venue for the 47 th Congress that could be carried out with minimal risks and proven logistical support; Istanbul, Turkey met these requirements. Istanbul is a vibrant, safe, and central location in Europe.

We are working with Conmark, our meeting planning company, to provide an interactive and safe environment to meet and discuss issues in beekeeping. With international tensions high, we have decided to prohibit the participation of Russian based vendors at the ApiExpo in Istanbul. However, we cannot penalize beekeepers for the actions of their governments and beekeepers from all nations are welcome in Istanbul. We are planning that the 47 th and all future Congresses to be of a hybrid nature, in person with live roundtables, talks and an ApiExpo with the ability to participate virtually as an option.

Please join us in Istanbul, Turkey in 2022 or Santiago, Chile in 2023. We sense a real desire by our members to meet in person after a long period of isolation.

Lastly, I will leave you with the words of Mahatma Gandhi who said "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall".

We have chosen the slogan "Bees Unite the World" for our 47th Congress in Istanbul, please join us.

Sincerely,