Happy World Bee Day! Celebrated on May 20 each year. the purpose of this international day is to acknowledge the role of bees and other pollinators for the ecosystem.
Every year on this day, the global public will focus on the importance of preserving honey bees and all other pollinators. People will be reminded of the significance of bees in providing for the needs of humanity.
THE BUZZ:
1. There are about 20,000 different species of bees in the world! Bees live in colonies that contain the queen bee, the worker bee and the drone.
2. Though bees have jointed legs, they do not possess anything like a kneecap, and therefore do not have knees.
3. Honey has antiseptic properties and was historically used as a dressing for wounds and a first aid treatment for burns and cuts.
4. The natural fruit sugars in honey – fructose and glucose – are quickly digested by the body. This is why sportsmen and athletes use honey to give them a natural energy boost.
5. The practice of beekeeping dates back at least 4,500 years!
6. Bees must gather nectar from two million flowers to make one pound of honey
7. One bee has to fly about 90,000 miles – three times around the globe – to make one pound of honey!
8. The average bee will make only 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime!
9.A honey bee visits fifty to one hundred flowers during a collection trip.
10. A honey bee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as fifteen miles per hour.
11. Bees communicate by dancing.
HOW TO OBSERVE
- • Make and set up a farm for bees and other pollinators in your home garden, yard, terrace, etc.
• Visit beekeepers to become acquainted with the work.
- • Plant nectar-bearing flowers for decorative purposes on balconies, terraces, and gardens.
• Have a bee breakfast that contains honey and other hive products
- • Set up a pollinator farm on your balcony, terrace, or garden; you can either make it yourself or buy at any home furnishings store.
• Buy honey and other hive products from your nearest local beekeeper.
- • Cut grass on meadows only after the nectar-bearing plants have finished blooming.
• Preserve old meadows – which feature a more diverse array of flowers – and sow nectar-bearing plants.
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- • Offer suitable farming locations for the temporary or permanent settlement of bees so that they have suitable pasture; as a consequence, they will pollinate our plants, which will thereby bear more fruit.
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- • Use pesticides that do not harm bees, and spray them in windless weather, either early in the morning or late at night, when bees withdraw from blossoms.
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- • Plant bee-friendly shrubs or flowers in your garden
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- • Dress up as a bee/wear clothes with bee motifs
- • Support a beekeeping/environmental charity
- • Organize a bee joke competition
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- • Alert all your contacts on social media to World Bee Awareness Day
Use #WorldBeeDay to share on social media.
HISTORY
On this day in 1734, the Slovenian pioneer of beekeeping Anton Janša was born. Beekeeping is taken so seriously in Slovenia that the nation’s unofficial motto is “Land of the Good Beekeepers“.
The country produces gourmet honey, offers beekeeping tourism, and likes to point out that the Slovenes – the wealthiest Slavic nation in the world – takes its work ethic from the honey bee.
May was the chosen month for World Bee Day because in the northern hemisphere the need for pollination is greatest during that period, while in the southern hemisphere it is a time for harvesting honey and bee products.
On September 15, 2014, the idea for a World Bee Day was conceived.
Slovenian beekeeper Bostjan Noc was driving to work at The Slovenian Beekeeper’s Association where he is president, listening to a radio program about World Days and their meaning and he wondered why bees didn’t have their own day.
Considering that every third spoonful of the world’s food relies on bees and other pollinators and that bees are increasingly endangered and almost no longer able to survive without human interventions and support, it seemed only right that the global public should be made aware.
RELEVANT OBSERVANCES
If you suffer from melissophobia, or apiphobia, please feel free to skip this random holiday.
#WorldBeeDay
@worldbeeday
@USDA
@USForestService
@nichecinema
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