Raising awareness & continuing the conversation on World Bee Day
In a few short years since my Slovenian beekeeping friends gathered the international beekeeping community together to have World Bee Day proclaimed, it's really exciting to see this movement gathering momentum.
One of our most important objectives for World Bee Day, is educating and arming the next generation – with schools and early education centres getting involved and celebrating World Bee Day around the country.
It’s also terrific to see Farmers’ Markets around Australia getting on board this weekend to raise awareness through the ‘We Need Bees’ campaign, thanks to the work of the Wheen Bee Foundation. Keep your eye out for volunteers and passionate bee advocates who will be brightly dressed in yellow! Bees play a vital role in Australia’s food security, and most of the delicious fruits and vegetables you see at Farmers’ Markets would simply not exist without the pollination services of this hard working little creature.
Conversations Over a Cuppa with T2 Tea
I’m also very pleased to be celebrating a great collaboration with T2 Tea who are great supporters of Australian beekeepers, through their stipulation for high quality Australian honey. I was lucky enough to have a taste of their newly improved T2 Sticky Chai, made using our 100% Australian honey – and it is YUM! It was fun being involved in this collaboration and to having a chat to Victoria, T2’s Sustainability Manager, who took the time to come and visit our bees just outside Beechworth. We got to have a Conversation Over a Cuppa and talk about all the things that matter for bees.
Victoria asked me what my best advice for what people could do to protect bees and after giving this some thought I boiled it down to three things:
- Choose Australian honey – it makes a massive difference to keeping Australian beekeepers in business which in turn sees their bees pollinating our food crops.
- Take a look at your surroundings and look at what is in flower. Bees need both pollen and nectar to survive and we can all do so much by planting a few extra flowering plants.
- Get involved with a landcare group or encourage planting at your local school or roadside verge.
Bee Arboretum – Planting 10,000 Trees for Bees
This World Bee Day you’ll find me taking a quiet walk after work through our Bee Arboretum. The growth of the trees we’ve planted so far has been phenomenal. We’ll be planting out a few more areas in winter to continue with this plot – getting close to hitting our target of 10,000 Trees for Bees!
Happy World Bee Day!
– Jodie