20 May, World Bee Day - the BEEdrome is born - a 4-hectare open-air alcove amidst vineyards and flowers - a winegrower also becomes a beekeeper

Antonio Zaccheo gives life to the BEEdrome, a 4-hectare oasis of agricultural happiness.

The bees set up a house in Carpineto and someone is decorating it with grass, flowers and lavender.

From Carpineto sustainable agriculture and no risk of extinction for bees or other pollinating insects but rather...

We had already seen them for some years among the Vermentino vineyards on the Gavorrano estate in Maremma! They had obtained some makeshift spaces, let's say so.

What better index than that beehive born around the trunk of the vine of an ecosystem in perfect balance?

Now from Carpineto the bees, which were obviously already doing well, have set up house as was desirable in a system, a supply chain, which helps them find the best habitat.

"Making wine without killing bees and insects and without damaging the ecosystem has always been normal for us. The contribution that bees make to agricultural production and to maintaining the biodiversity of wild botanical species is immense; I felt indebted to them .

In fact, with their small "proboscis", the tongue, they dry the sugary juices which, attacked by microorganisms, could damage the grapes - says Antonio Mario Zaccheo, founder in 1967 with Giovanni Carlo Sacchet of Carpineto who spends more and more time on the Gavorrano estate, the wilder than the five of Carpineto with all those woods and Mediterranean scrub to embrace the vineyards.

I thought of the danger that bees are running, and we with them, and in the name of survival and continuation of biodiversity, I decided to allocate a part of our land to a preparatory activity to increase the beekeeping heritage by providing these precious insects a field on which to thrive and multiply.

To these vinedresser bees , precious collaborators, Antonio Mario Zaccheo has decided to dedicate 4 hectares of the estate and build a BEEdrome , as he has decided to call it, playing on an evident assonance.

An open-air "alcove" we could call it. A pleasant space full of flowers to live and thrive.

The first beehives between two fields and an ash plantation.

The first field is made up of about 2 hectares of alfalfa.

The second, another 2 hectares, is sown with a flowering mix of perennial and annual species that provide nectar and pollen to the bees. It is what is needed for correct bee activity and to provide them with nourishment throughout the season. It is a miscellany of seeds for turf called "spring beekeeping" and composed of : dill, bird's trefoil, buckwheat, sainfoin, lupin alfalfa, white and yellow melilot, sulla, crimson clover, red clover, red clover, white mustard and yarrow.

But that's not all - adds Zacchaeus - we have also tried to think of a plant particularly loved by bees, lavender and we are experimenting with the inclusion of various types: true lavender, stoechas lavender, and dwarf lavender. The project is at the beginning and under development but our commitment in this direction is now consolidated and confirmed."