"The harvest is worse and worse in the countryside," he said. Some years, he doesn't lose any in the city, he said. Paucton, 75, said losses in the countryside can be as much as 50 percent, while the number in the city doesn't even approach 5 percent. He sells little jars of it to the opera house gift shop for about €4, which are resold for €14.50. Paucton's city hives produce 450 kilograms of honey a year. The retired opera house accessory artist said that the hives, which overlook the Galeries Lafayette department store in central Paris, are healthier than the ones he keeps in the country. Jean Paucton, who has kept bees on the roof of Paris's opera house for about 25 years, has seen that rural decline first hand. "There is mounting evidence of pollinator decline all over the world and consequences in many agricultural areas could be significant," the report said. France is Europe's biggest agricultural producer.
In Europe, about 84 percent of crop species depend directly on insect pollinators, especially bees, according to a June report co-authored by Bernard Vaissière, the head of research at the INRA. Pesticides, mites and viruses are among leading causes. Colony Collapse Disorder, the sudden, massive disappearance of bees, was found in 35 states and has harmed hives in Asia, Europe and South America, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. The United States saw large hive losses in 2006, 90 percent or more in some cases. "In many countries, the countryside has become a desert for bees." The United States and Britain also have used cities as breeding grounds for bees, although the "French program is very well developed and has huge scale compared to others," said Asger Sogaard Jorgensen, the president of Apimondia. The apiculture association rolled out the French urban program in 2005, and will present its results next year in Montpellier, France, at a conference organized by Apimondia, a global group of beekeepers' associations, based in Rome. "We say 'close the jars when you're done and avoid wearing lots of perfume or the bees may think you're a big flower,"' Moncelli said. The hotel gives honey out as gifts and serves it at breakfast. The Eiffel Park Hotel began beekeeping three years ago, when it turned one of its terraces into a site for two to three hives, which produce 150 kilograms, or 331 pounds, of honey a year. Our operation in the city is one of creating awareness." "We need bees in the countryside," said Henri Clément, president of the Paris-based National Apiculture Association, which ran the project. As in the United States and in Britain, where bee colonies are dying, about 300,000 to 400,000 French hives have disappeared every year between 19, victims of pesticides, pollution and disease.