Bees are incredibly important to the environment and ecology, and are under threat across the globe.

Belgium’s newest €2.5 coin for 2024 honors “The Bee in Belgium” to highlight this growing threat to and the importance of the bee. This coin is legal tender but will not circulate.

Apart from being honey suppliers, bees are important pollinators. Without their busy contribution — and that of bumblebees, butterflies and bats too — food security would be compromised, because without bees, there would be no coffee, nuts, vegetables, fruit or cotton.

Unfortunately, the global bee population has shrunk drastically in recent decades. Belgium is no exception. Intensive agriculture, encroaching urbanization and pesticide use have taken their toll.

Design details

The €2.5 coin is struck from brass and features a multi-view element, with two different background scenes visible, depending on how the obverse is tilted.

Iris Bruijns designed the obverse, which features a bee and a stylized cherry blossom, with the Belgian map or the form of a honeycomb behind it.

The reverse shows the face value, the year of issue and the European map, surrounded by the trilingual caption BELGIË-BELGIQUE-BELGIEN.

The coin weighs 10.5 grams and measures 25.65 millimeters in diameter.

A Brilliant Uncirculated version is available in two different bilingual coin cards, with either English and Dutch or German and French descriptions. Each coin card has a production limit of 6,250 pieces.

An additional 6,000 coins are available in the annual Fleur-de-coin (Proof) set.

The coins are available from mid-June. U.S.-based distributor Royal Scandinavian Mint is expected to offer the coin, but its pricing was unavailable at press time.

To order, or learn more, visit the distributor website, www.rsmint.com.

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