We depend on bees for diversity in our food system. But bees are in big trouble, which is why Cascadian Farm wanted to help. They launched their Bee Friendlier initiative with a Flower Bombing in Yolo County, California, where they planted over a million native wildflower seeds to help increase pollinator habitat. (techie tAalk for creating a huge field of wildflowers).

Watch the excellently done video above and join the cause by planting your own wildflowers, buying organic and avoiding pesticides. Because even a small change can make a big difference.

Bee Friendly Facts

We All Can Help Save Our Native Bees!

Bees are vital to our lives as they are the primary pollinators of plants in the entire world, and especially in the food and fruit growing regions. If native bees were to die out, the effect on crops and wild flowers would be utterly devastating. Since these crops provide food for us and our wild and farm animals, we could easily lose more than half of our regular diet. This is a very real problem, with very serious repercussions, and much like global warming is one that is not getting the attention it needs.  But this problem, unlike global warming, has a very pleasant positive corrective action easily taken by us all.  Plant more flowers!

There have been many suggestions as to the causes of the decline in the current bee population, one of which is the widespread use of pesticides. Insecticides and pesticides may have an adverse effect on bees and could explain the huge numbers that are dying out each and every year. Other suggestions that have been brought forward include wide ranging guesses including mites that spread disease and the change in climate.  But the simple truth is, bee keepers are at a loss to explain why this is happening though there is no denying what is happening.  We are rapidly loosing our bee friendly world, so we all need to get involved worldwide to do something about it.

This is not a new phenomenon either; since the 1950’s the number of species of native bee in the UK has halved from 50 to just 25, with three more alarmingly close to extinction. This is a crisis as dangerous as any other you will ever read on the front page of your news, but it needs greater support.  Your support.  We can all do something to help the native bee population, and most of the suggestions are simple and very enjoyable.

You could take the radical step of becoming a beekeeper, a hobby that is gaining rapidly in popularity as it gives much enjoyment and provides delicious honey! There are clubs and societies for bee-keepers across the USA, the UK and mainland Europe, and plenty of information is available online on the art of keeping bees and how to get started.

California Honey Bee Feeds At An Oakland, California Bee Friendly Balcony Flower Box – Mine!

That bee keeping radical route is not for everyone.  It doesn’t take radical strides to effect change.  It takes baby steps.  The easiest and most directly effective method of helping bees is to make sure you plant flowers and shrubs they prefer. Bees love rhododendron, poppies and the popular buddleia bushes that also attract butterflies, and are excellent at cross-pollinating fruit trees. Bees love variety also, so planting a few packets of wildflower seeds around your normal home shrubbery will most certainly also help.  Get the kids out, get out your cameras, and film your children helping the environment we all need to live in.

What is missing in the fight to save bees is a serious political approach worldwide, and your own personal involvement. It is widely overlooked facts that losing the bees would be a truly disastrous event that would have grave effects on our economy at a minimum, and potentially endangering the very survival of the human race due to starvation at the worst outcome. Bees are not just simple insects that buzz around the garden and provide honey, they are creatures with an interesting and complex life that are also vital to our countryside and everyday lives.  Now if that isn’t a good story, I don’t know what is.  Learn to Bee Friendly, and Bee Friendlier.  Go watch the movie above, and have fun planting some flowers you and your family will enjoy for years to come – and so will the native bees!

#beefriendlier  #beefriendly

Find out how you can help bees at www.bee-friendlier.com

Music: “Glósóli” performed by Sigur Rós
Courtesy of Geffen Records, Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

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