Beekeeping is one of the more internationally networked branches of agriculture. Apimondia, the International Federation of Beekeepers' Associations founded in 1949 and headquartered in Rome, links national associations from over 100 countries, runs a biennial World Beekeeping Congress, and coordinates scientific commissions on bee health, technology, economy and beekeeping for rural development. Underneath that umbrella, beekeepers also cooperate directly: exchange placements send beekeepers to work in another country's apiaries for weeks or months, and joint research projects pool universities and institutes across borders to tackle shared problems like Varroa resistance and pollinator decline.
Apimondia's World Beekeeping Congress has been hosted on every inhabited continent — from Buenos Aires to Montreal to Istanbul — reflecting how genuinely global the craft has become despite its small-scale, local roots.
An interactive 3D globe showing how Apimondia's Rome hub, national beekeeping federations, cross-border exchange placements and joint research projects connect beekeepers across the world.
Three overlapping cooperation layers — a top-down federation network centred on Apimondia, peer-to-peer exchange placements between individual countries, and dashed joint-research links between institutes — each with markers travelling live routes.
Switch the network view between hub, exchange and research links, focus on a region to see who cooperates with whom, and raise cooperation activity to watch more routes light up and travel faster. Drag to rotate the globe, scroll to zoom.
Apimondia, founded in 1949, now represents beekeeping associations from over 100 countries and holds its World Beekeeping Congress every two years on a different continent.