The Bee Kind Challenge Step 6
Bee a Messenger, share your knowledge of the importance of bees and how to help them with others.
Summed up the bee kind challenge is six simple steps:
Plant a pot of bee friendly flowers
If you have grass, let it bee!
Stop using pesticides
Install an airb&bee
Put tired bees in nearby flowers
Share your bee rescue mission with your family and friends
The motivation behind these steps is clear, as we can all see the increasingly negative impact of human activity on the environment, not just for bees, for many species including ourselves.
The decline of bee populations is just one expression of the environmental problems we are causing, an indicator for how bad the loss of biodiversity is becoming. The full impact if we don’t act, is yet to come for most of us. What would that impact look like?
Declining bee populations also means declining numbers of flowers, fruits, wildflowers, animals, and all that depend on these things including our own crops. It is estimated that if we had to do the work of pollination ourselves it would cost between £182 billion and £448 billion a year and that every ⅓ mouthful that we eat is dependent on pollination.
A carder bee enjoying a mouthful of nectar!
The decline of bee populations is happening everywhere, in your neighbourhood and mine. In your country, and mine. In the countryside, and in the city. The same pressures impacting bees are impacting ALL of us, but it can be difficult for individuals to know what to do when faced with business practices and government policy that mostly fails to protect the natural world.
As well as advocating for fundamental change in how we treat the natural world, we can team up, share knowledge and try to make our own small corner of the world greener.
Global campaigning from conservation organisations like Friends of the Earth, The Bumblebee Conservation Trust and The Pollinator Partnership has already begun to inspire change.
In Amsterdam bee friendly initiatives including green roofs, bee hotels and wildflower verges have successfully reversed the decline of the city's bee population, a 2015 survey monitoring pollinators identified 21 bee species that had not been recorded in the city before.
In the UK 7 out of 10 city councils are letting the grass grow longer to support wildlife. Leicester is just one city that is encouraging pollinators. The roofs of the city’s bus shelters are being planted with a mix of wildflowers to form a “bee bus stop” network.
Similar projects are taking place in communities around the world but there is a long way to go. Spreading education and awareness remains a vital step if we want to help save the bees and all that they give us for future generations.
Sharing with others helps us to connect and be a part of our community and sharing with others near you means you will have more impact on the bees ( and whole eco-system) in your neighbourhood. A great way to help bees is to provide them with frequent nectar stops. If you connect with neighbours and all plant a pot for bees you will do exactly that.
Mark Rowland, CEO of the Mental Health Foundation, says “Doing good can help reduce stress and improve your emotional wellbeing". So if you decide to plant some flowers for your local bees please share with others near you, it might do more good than you think!
How to bee a messenger and help raise awareness of the importance of bees:
Share The Bee Kind Challenge with your local school, council or community group and ask them to take part
Share The Bee Kind Challenge on your social media #beekindchallenge #savethebees
Follow us on social media to share our latest bee inspired posts- Facebook Instagram
If you are under 18 take part in our Bee Inspired Art and Design competition.
Join a local conservation organisation and connect with others helping your local environment.