Preparations for World Bee Day are ramping up, and food and beverage brands are joining the fight.
Gnaw Chocolate, Hive Mind Mead & Brew Co, and Scottish Bee Co are joining forces to do their bit for our tiny black and yellow friends, by offering discounts on honey-themed products throughout the month of May.
All three brands support sustainable honey farming, which focuses on practices that protect the environment, maintain bee health, and support beekeepers. They’re hoping this new campaign will help to raise awareness of the importance of bees.
And they’re not the first get involved in protecting our greatest pollinators. Confectionery giant Mondelēz International has established its Harmony programme, which promotes a variety of sustainable practices, including installation of ‘bee hotels’ on supplier farms, to provide a sheltered and protected habitat for the small but powerful pollinators.
World Bee Day
Taking place on 20 May, World Bee Day shines a light on the essential role these small beings play in the ecosystem.
As well as being important in their own right, bees are our best pollinators. According to the Woodland Trust, around 70 crops depend on or benefit from bee pollination in the UK alone. While there are other methods of pollination, including by other animals and the wind, wild bees can pollinate on a much bigger and more efficient scale. In fact, estimates suggest it would cost UK farmers £1.8bn (€2.1bn) a year to manually pollinate their crops.
“Without bees, and thousands of other insect species, it would not be long before our ecosystem collapsed. Bees pollinate our wild trees and wildflowers, which then support other insects, which then support birds, bats, mammals and everything up the food chain, with food and shelter,” said a spokesperson for the Woodland Trust.
Bees are also responsible for pollinating many of the crops used for animal feed, meaning that they help to support the production of meat, egg and dairy products.
In short, bees are essential, but their numbers are in drastic decline as environmental changes, industrial farming practices, destruction of habitats and the increased risk of disease in hives, places their very existence under threat.
Three bumblebee species have become extinct in recent decades and the recent European Red List for Bees reports that almost one in ten species of wild bee now faces extinction.
#savethebees
As well as being important in their own right, bees are our greatest pollinators. (Image: Getty/Jag_cz)