A Buzz-worth Pollinator
by Courtney Normand
World Bee Day:
Without bees, the world would look a lot greyer, the variety of food would be a lot slimmer, and our health would diminish. World Bee Day is an internationally recognized holiday to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of bees and beekeeping. This year, Mountain Man Cave Honey, Jackson County Beekeepers, and The Village Green are collaborating and co-sponsoring a free event for the public to celebrate the 1st annual Cashiers World Bee Day on Saturday, May 22nd. This event will be held under the Gazebo at the Cashiers Village Green from 11am-3pm. The event will feature hive demonstrations, various arts and crafts activities and games for all ages, light refreshments, and live music featuring Asheville Singer/Songwriter Oliver Padgett from 1pm-2:30pm.
The Importance of Bees:
Do you like apples? Almonds? Cheese? Or carrots?
Without bees, all of these items and much more would disappear. Bees single-handedly pollinate 1/3rd of the world’s food production and 90% of all wildflowers. Think about if every 1 in 3 bites you took would vanish; our health would vastly diminish. We rely on honeybees to pollinate many of the nutritious vegetables, fruits, nuts, and dairy products that make up our diet. Without honeybees, not only could we not sustain life but also all other herbivore animals could not either.
The decline of honeybee health affects everyone! If we do not act, our global food supply, ecosystems, and the economy will be greatly impacted. Honeybees play a foundational role in our food value chain, therefore; we all need to work together to ensure the survival of bees and other animal pollinators.
Here are 5 simple ways we can all “Bee a Friend”:
- Plant pollinators and native plants in your garden.
- Reduce your chemical use such as pesticides, fertilizers, and other synthetics.
- Create a little bee bath in your backyard- bees get thirsty too!
- Remember bees are friends, not foes! Do not spray them to kill them, swat, or try to get rid of them with deadly tactics. Call a local beekeeper instead!
- Raising awareness by sharing information with your community. The decline of bees affects us all!
The Life of A Beekeeper’s Journal
“As beekeepers, we are stewarding the survival of honeybees and that is something we don’t take lightly. Being a beekeeper has its good days and its bad days. I have learned that the great days are when you enter the hives and see that your bees are healthy and are producing a great amount of offspring. Bad days are when you enter a hive to find out that your bees left, are sick, or in the worst cases have died. However, as ups and downs happen the best plan of action you can do is problem solve, learn from the experience, and try harder in the future. The bees will teach you everything you need to know, as long as you are attentive and listening. I never thought that at the age of 23, I would have such a driven passion for anything especially, something like beekeeping. Protecting and raising awareness about the fragile state of honeybees and our ecosystem has become a life’s mission and the more we can do as a collective, will secure a promising sustainable future.” –Courtney Normand, Mountain Man Cave Honey
