With wild bees to strawberries for Guinness

With wild bees to strawberries for Guinness

Strawberries, big as apples are being grown by the Jovanovic family in the Village of Udovice which is near the Town of Smederevo. Their strawberry of 245 grams is by 14 grams heavier than the one specified by the Guinness World Records.

The Jovanovices have achieved such result with a help of ordinary wild bees.

- Actually they are not quite wild because we are taking care of them – Dragoslav Jovanovic, a retired engineer says.

When he was diagnosed chest tumor in 2000, he underwent surgery and soon after it went into pension. Doctors advised him not to give up but find a hobby. He decided to grow fruit.

- I had to rest, so I was reading a lot. On the Internet I found a text about growing strawberries on floors at the Mauritius – Dragoslav says.

The turning point was when he met Professor Ljubisa Stanisavljevic of the Zoology Institute in 2009. The Professor told him about the lonely bees known as the ‘osmije’. They pollinate pears. If they pollinate pears, why not strawberries, too, Dragoslav thought.

- Nobody in Europe has these bees. As I learned later, shortly before air strikes the Americans were interested to purchase them from us to pollinate almonds. Since it happened what happened, they bought it from the Japanese – he explains.

His son Dejan, expert in computers, has joined the business.

- The advantage of the solitary bees is that they do not choose. Domestic, honey bees, fly to a flower, but if it is bitter they simply turn away – Dejan explains.

- When we picked the first fruit we did...