There are some jobs you dream of.

Maybe it’s to be the boss of your own multi million dollar company, working with children, caring for the sick, running an organic farm, editing your own magazine or being an inspirational speaker.

There are a few I can think of and Sainsbury’s, of all places, have just created one such dream job!

I used to work at Sainsburys as a checkout girl - that was most certainly NOT a dream job, but now they have just recruited retail’s first ever bee keeper!

The lucky bee expert Robin Dean has been hired to set up and maintain a network of ‘bee hotels’ at 38 stores across London for housing solitary bees. The initiative is part of the company’s ‘Respect for the Environment’ programme.

As you’ll be aware from reading Little Green Blog, one third of the food we eat is pollinated by bees. Without bees the future of our food and farming will change drastically.

By employing a bee expert, Sainsburys hope to protect the long term future of its British fruit and vegetables. Sainsbury’s recognise that if they are to continue to sell fresh British produce, they have to look at the problem of the declining bee population and become part of the solution.

Bee expert Robin Dean said: “Bees are the unsung hero of the food chain, as most fresh fruit and veg depends on bees for pollination. We hope that by setting these bee hotels up at a network of stores across the city, we’ll be able to help rejuvenate the bee population, and learn more about why the population has decreased so dramatically over the past few years.”

The hotels are designed to offer an ideal habitat for bees to raise larvae, which will be collected by Robin and incubated until they are ready to be placed back into the hotel to hatch.

Robin added: “Solitary bees are different to honey bees. They live in isolation rather than as part of a hive. They don’t make honey, so have nothing to protect, making them docile and very unlikely to sting, so customers need not worry!”

If you want to do your bit to help the bees, read our article about bee friendly plants.

What about you - what would your dream job be?

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