On Tuesday, May 24, the third "Golden Bee" award ceremony was held at the Palace of Slovenia in Ljubljana. "Golden Bee" is awarded by the Republic of Slovenia as the highest national recognition for the contribution to the preservation, protection and promotion of bees and other pollinators. In competition from 12 candidates from eight European countries, the Commission for the award chose the three best applications: Ph.D. Fani Hatjina from Greece, Pau Enrique Serra Marin from Spain and Ph.D. Slobodan Davidović from Serbia.

Our Dr. Slobodan Davidović with the SERBHIWE project was unanimously declared this year's winner and the award was presented by the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr. Nataša Pirc Musar. The Slovenian Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Nutrition, chairperson of the commission, pointed out in her explanation: "The winning project SERBHIWE investigates the genetic variability of managed and free-living honey bee populations in Serbia. Analyzes have shown that free-living societies of honey bees have greater genetic diversity, indicating the need to change beekeeping practices, which would sustainably contribute to improving honey bees ability to respond to the challenges they are currently facing."
The SERBHIWE project was financed by the Science Fund within the PROMIS call, and the team members are dr. Slobodan Davidović (project manager), dr. Marija Tanasković, dr. Aleksandra Patenković, Katarina Erić and Pavle Erić, associates of the Department of Population Genetics and Ecogenotoxicology, Institute for Biological Research "Siniša Stanković, and prof. dr. Ljubiša Stanisavljević from the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade.