Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THIRTEEN. AN UNLUCKY number to most, but maybe a lucky number for bees and the planet?
Why? I hear you ask.
You see, 13 years ago we bought a farm in a small village on the Wicklow/Wexford border. A small farm with a big view down a long lane, not without its potholes.
Now, 13 years later, this small farm is having a big impact across the planet. It’s now the hub of the ambitious World Bee Sanctuary.
Yes, folks, we’re going big for bees!
World Bee Sanctuary is the new, improved, expanded mission from the people (us!) who, back in 2017, set up the world’s first true Native Wild Bee sanctuary — The Bee Sanctuary of Ireland.
Set on 55 acres (around 31 football pitches in size) of mixed clean habitat, and the only certified vegan organic land in Ireland, what started out as a crazy but unique idea eight years ago has, we believe, changed the standard for wild bee advocacy, inspired many to set up their own environmental initiatives and reached tens of millions of people all across the globe.
We like to believe we are the little farm with a big heart that cared and dared. We cared enough to look with a different eye beyond the research on what was happening to Native Wild Bees.
Around 40% of bee species are endangered worldwide, with 25% of bee species missing from recordings since the 1990s. Bee numbers are diminishing at a rate of 5% per annum… the figures get worse and worse and show no signs of improving any time soon.
We have dared enough to ask the awkward questions and say out loud the hard truths often ducked by others.
Honey bees are not endangered — they’re part of the problem when it comes to saving native wild bees. Flowers bought to ‘Save the Bees’ are often pre-treated with a cocktail of chemicals that can be harmful to bees and the environment.
Over the past 50 years, the food we have chosen to eat and how we have chosen to produce it have been the main drivers in the demise of native wild bees and, indeed, much of the natural ecosystem.
In short, if you care about bees, you need to be truly vigilant and know what information you can trust. It’s of vital importance to our little friends, and that’s where we at the sanctuary come in.
Yes, folks, our human diets don’t just determine our own health and well-being but directly impact the health of bees and the planet.
And now with human-caused climate disruption, change is such a benign, ‘safe’ word, don’t you think?
Chaos and breakdown?
Well, we’re not quite ready for that here yet, are we? So maybe ‘disruption’ is the word we’re choosing? Can we go there? Well, whatever the wording, it’s taking its toll on bees.
All these issues are the hard ones to even acknowledge and talk about, never mind taking action on. It’s so much easier to just talk about leaving your grass long, No-Mow-May, sowing some native wildflowers and not using chemicals in our gardens — the personal responsibility stuff.
Stick a little bee sign on it, take a photo for social media, raise some funding and walk away.
Job done.
But it’s not job done. Not by a long shot.
Here at World Bee Sanctuary, we align with the old Kennedy quote: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”
We don’t do what we do for bees because it’s easy. We do it because it’s hard, urgent, and existential.
We need to tackle this at a unified global level. For sure, all the personal responsibility stuff needs to be done, but not in a vacuum bereft of global joined-up thinking. We need both.
However, politicians and their corporate bedfellows across the globe have proven consistently that they will not step up for bees and the planet. They do not take what is happening seriously.
So it’s now down to us, the people, to care.
The dreamer in me would tell you it’s a dandelion-filled time machine that disregards timelines, travelling to the past and the future all at once, transporting us to a better planet without leaving this one.
We have worked hard to make sure that World Bee Sanctuary is a safe space where all is as it could and should be.
Beyond borders, religion, politics and war.
It’s a nectar-loaded big-ass queen bumblebee so covered in millions of grains of pollen that you can’t tell what colour she is, flying across the planet pollinating ideas wherever she lands. She leaves a trail of wildflowers, smiles, and positive potential in her wake.
But in short, we stumbled upon a place that called upon us to create a space and a model that works for bees, nature and humans. We called it The Bee Sanctuary of Ireland.
Bees and nature thrive, while humans connect and are inspired to do better. People all over the world responded and wanted to visit.
We’re going to replicate what we have developed here in Ireland throughout the globe: sanctuaries for bees, for nature, for people and for the future. Our new website, worldbeesanctuary.org launches today.
We bring the vision and the opportunity to do better. Funding and a committed, engaged network are required to make it happen. So we need your support with both of these. We envisage that people will fund the establishment of these sanctuaries across the planet.
Sanctuaries of the people, by the people, for the people… and bees! Local and loved. This will mean that they are real and purposeful, and honest. Free from the constraints of other funding models that may impinge upon and even dilute the message, the mission, and the advocacy. Able to move and impact faster and leaner than the slow roll squander of government — National Children’s Hospital? No, thanks.
If you want a World Bee Sanctuary near you, then check out our website and help us make it happen. Get involved.
We can at least try.
For bees!
The Bee Guy is the co-founder of the first and only true native wild bee sanctuary on the planet – The Bee Sanctuary of Ireland. To support the work he does, check out: worldbeesanctuary.org. Twitter @the_beeguy.
have your say