Good News — Bees are Back. Bees were thought to slowly be going…
By: Maria Badasian
Tags: Bees, Good News, Green Energy, Sustainability, Environment

Good News — Bees are Back

Bees were thought to slowly be going extinct, which is not good for our economy and planet. With the effort of organizations and people, their endangerment is being slowed down.

There’s an Instagram post that’s four pages long. It’s a list titled Good News for People Worried about the Earth. None of the bullet points use capitalized words. It implements the words “stuff” and “like,” taking a casual approach to communicate these laws, motions, and plans that various countries, celebrities, and big corps are incorporating.

The list is long. I include a fair amount of research in these articles for the benefit of my readers (and myself). Therefore, I have decided to split all the information I found in at least three parts. Here, I focus on the positive news concerning bees.

Photo by Hari Nandakumar

Bees have been a topic of issue for several years now. There’s been an increase in the number of collapsing bee colonies, which isn’t good because they are crucial to our planet’s and economy's survival. Bees pollinate pretty much anything, so they help the growth of trees and plants that is either food or shelter for other animals, including us. Bees and their honey are eaten by other species — making them part of the food chain.

Globally there are more honey bees than other types of bee and pollinating insects, so it is the world’s most important pollinator of food crops. — SustainWeb

List items concerning bees:

“The bees in Notre Dame survived the fire, and the roof could possibly be built in a more eco-friendly way.”

Notre Dame, a French-gothic styled church in Paris, went through a massive fire in 2019. And the bees survived! Since 2013, the roof held three beehives with 60,000 bees in each hive. The hives were just out of reach of the fire.

As far as the roof goes, a Parisian architect by the name of Vincent Callebaut has proposed to build a roof that generates more energy than it uses and grows 21 tons of fruits and veggies every year. The church would sell and distribute the food across Paris. The President of France has pledged to complete this roof within five years, although conservatives urge him not to rush the project. According to Arch Daily’s article written in April of this year, the construction and removing of the burnt remnants have been paused several times for different reasons, the latest reason being COVID.

“Morgan Freeman turned a 124-acre ranch in Mississippi to a bee habitat.”

Morgan Freeman, an American actor, turned his ranch into a bee habitat at 81 years old. He started this hobby because he understands the importance of bees to the “growth of the planet and vegetation.” According to Forbes, he also mentions that he has no intention of harvesting honey. He just lets them pollinate various trees.

The timestamp starts where they start talking about Freeman’s new hobby

“Another large bee habitat has been created (.5 mil acres).”

The Million Pollinator Garden Movement is an initiative started in 2015 by the National Pollinator Garden Network challenging homeowners and gardeners to save the pollinators. Summing up all the contributing gardens together, they add up to about 5 million acres.

Photo by Bianca Ackerman

“106 new species of bees have been discovered in Australia since 2010.”

As part of the Bush Blitz program, a nature discovery program found 1713 species of plants, bugs, mammals, algae, and fungi across Australia. 112 of those being bees (updated number).

What we can do as citizens to help bees

If you are a homeowner with a garden, try growing some bee-friendly plants in your garden, meaning flowers they can pollinate. Any consumer who buys honey can support their local beekeepers by buying their honey. If you have the funds and are dedicated to the cause, you can sponsor a hive. And if you have space, time, and commitment, you can start your own hive. Anyone with internet and fingers can spread awareness… by sharing this article!

Point is, no matter who you are, how much money, time, and space you have, you don’t have to be Morgan Freeman to make a slight change.