Celebrated each year in September, Bee Aware Month is a time to raise awareness of the vital role bees play in our food chain, biodiversity and economy. It’s all about making sure our Kiwi bees have plenty of food to keep them buzzing. Why?
We need bees, more than you might think. Bees pollinate one third of the food we eat, and life would be a struggle without them. It’s a two-way street, though – bees need us to plant food they can eat, to keep them buzzing and doing the awesome stuff they do for us.
Over $5 billion of New Zealand’s agricultural exports also depend on bees. Its not just about the fact that they produce our famous manuka honey, and other fabulous honeys…. its the fact that the bees pollinate so many of our export crops such as avocados, kiwifruit and other delicious fruits produced in New Zealand. They help pollinate our vegetable crops, they pollinate the flowers in our pastures so that our grass fed cows have plenty to much on. Really… we just can not get by without bees.
Yet bee numbers worldwide are in decline and we must do all that we can to save them before it’s too late – some of the main factors causing this are nutritional stress, lack of food compromising the bees’ resistance to pests and diseases, and pesticides and sprays.
Join the fight to Feed the Bees, and keep up with the Bee Aware Month Facebook page for the latest information.