To finish our celebration of National Honey week, it’s time to think about the furry workers who make the honey for us!

So far we’ve looked at the amazing healing powers of manuka honey, looked at honey as a natural remedy for hayfever, learned how to use honey in our beauty routine and seen how honey is a valuable addition to the medicine cabinet.

But now honey bees are in decline and we can all do something to help.

Whether it’s planting bee friendly plants in your garden, setting up a hive, supporting local honey producers, raising awareness or donating to the bumble bee conservation trust; we can all do our bit.

You might be wondering what all the fuss is about. I mean, we can all use agave syrup, sugar or maple syrup right? It’s not that difficult without honey?

The thing that people often forget is that bees are responsible for pollinating one third of the food we eat. Think about all the foods you eat in your typical diet and imagine it with one third gone!

In addition, bees pollinate cotton - imagine a world without cotton.

What about beeswax? You’ll find it in your favourite toiletries, cleaning products and candles.

In our garden, the bees are attracted to comfrey, lavender, thyme and chive flowers; you can read more about our bee garden and the types of flowers bees are attracted to with our “Bee friendly plants” article.

To raise awareness about this issue, you could host a showing of “Vanishing of the bees” which is all about colony collapse. You could invite your friends over, serve some honey based foods such as honey cookies and collect donations for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

Locate your local honey producer and buy their products; you can check out the Local Honey Producers database, your local farmers market or check out lots of helpful and interesting information on the British Beekeepers Association website.

For us, we’ll be studying bees as part of our home education curriculum. We’ve got a honeybees lapbook to complete, and some wildflower seeds and print outs from the Bumblebee conservation trust to keep us busy.

According to Einstein, once the bee disappears, we will follow in four short years.
What could you do today to help prevent the decline of the honey bee?

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