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Loading...5 Simple Ways to Help Honeybees
- Judi Gerber
- August 13, 2012
- 11:05 am
- 98 comments
Saturday, August 18 is National Honey Bee Awareness Day. As stated on their website, the main goals of the day are to promote and advance beekeeping, to educate the public about honeybees and beekeeping, and to make the public aware of environmental issues that affect honeybees.
This year’s theme is “Sustainable Agriculture Starts With Honey Bees.” This has become an issue to farming because bees around the world have been dying off due to a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder.
Honeybees are vital to our food supply. Without bees, there’s no pollination. Without pollination, there’s a negative impact on the quality and quantity of our food supply, because there are over 130 different crops that depend on them. Having a local source of honeybees contributes greatly to local food security.
There are special events to commemorate Bee Awareness Day in local communities throughout the country; check with your local garden center, beekeeping group, or county agriculture department to find one near you.
There are also some other ways to help year-round. Do one of the following to support the honeybees:
- Support local beekeepers by buying locally-produced honey and other beehive products. Honey is a great “green” sweetener.
- Plant a bee-friendly garden and purchase wildflower seeds, not only to support National Honey Bee Day, but to help the honeybees, native pollinators, and the environment.
- Join or contribute to one of the campaigns designed to help the honeybees, including Häagen-Dazs Help the Honey Bees, or The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees.
- Attend a local screening of the documentary Vanishing of The Bees. Or buy the DVD and screen it yourself for friends and family to get them educated about the issue as well.
- Consider becoming a “backyard” beekeeper yourself. The more beekeepers there are, the more bees there are. And there will be a stronger coalition to advocate for the bees and educate the public.
Read more: Conscious Consumer, Do Good, Environment, Food, Green, Lawns & Gardens, Nature, Nature & Wildlife, beekeeping, bees, honey, honeybee, Honeybee Awareness Day, honeybees
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Judi Gerber
Judi Gerber is a University of California Master Gardener with a certificate in Horticultural Therapy. She writes about sustainable farming, local foods, and organic gardening for multiple magazines. Her book Farming in Torrance and the South Bay was released in September 2008.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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ok
Such a lovely sight! Thank you
in the other words, we all ought to be eating and living like our forefathers. move it, move it~
98 comments
+ add your ownShared :)
Thanks
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for this posting, esp. the tips to encourage us all to help the BZ honey bee. I'm looking for a job and a place to live. Once settled I'd like to have a hive. The University of California, Berkeley has a bee study station with information on lots of native bees, so I guess I'll start there.
thanks! i love honey!
Help the bee's ;-) plant a flower:-) help yourself...in the long run)))
We sure need to do what we can to protect all these species of bees...
Thank you!
I live on the perimeter of Glacier National Park and every spring I have about two hundred hummers of 4 different species. This area has abundant wildflowers and the hummers are doing Great here.
My mom is a honey bee keeper. I sent this to her.
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