World Bee Day 2022 – why bees need our help and support

The 20th of May is World Bee Day, and it is a great opportunity to remind ourselves just how crucial bees are to us, and check in with how the bees at our 130 hives across 64 customer locations in the UK are doing.

Bees are essential pollinators and as we all know, produce vast quantities of honey. In fact last year alone, our beekeepers harvested more than a tonne from client sites, much of which has been sold on the site and within the local community. Without bees, less pollen will be carried to other plants that we rely on for food sources and which provide habitat for other creatures. As members of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and Bee Farmers’ Association, we strive to educate our clients on this critical fact, and further encourage them to consider the impact their daily operations have on biodiversity.

This education also extends to our own teams at Nurture; in addition to 11 of our clients, we have trained 72 of our colleagues to NVQ standard in beekeeping, with our resident bee guru, John Beavan, who also holds the Master of Horticulture Level 6 Award. See John give a behind-the-scenes look at one of our hives here. 

Around 10 years ago, the Nurture Group held its first ‘meet the bees’ event – an educational and interactive talk enabling those with hives on their business premises to get a closer look at the honeybee and the intricacies of the hive network, and learn more about the bees’ importance in the natural world, how we can support them and how they live as a colony. A decade on and we’ll be surpassing the 3 000 attendees mark. Our “honey harvesting” events also allow people to help with the extraction of honey from the hive direct to a jar, and understand how beekeepers carry out this task in harmony with the colony.

We believe that we are the only group delivering these events and beekeeping as a service on such a vast scale. For our clients, the beehive service also represents an opportunity for them to learn more about the Nurture Group as a whole, with many enquiring about our grounds maintenance services as well. This integrated focus is key for enhancing biodiversity.

So what can we all do to give bees a leg-up, not just for World Bee Day, but all year-round? In the warmer summer months, it is sadly not uncommon to see bees struggling with dehydration on the ground. The first instinct many of us would have would be give the poor bee a few drops of sugared water, which is fine as an absolute last resort, but it is better to carefully take it onto any nearby grass or leaves as this will hydrate the bee more effectively. In urban areas where such greenspace is limited, providing a water source on a balcony is also a good solution.

Perhaps one of the more impactful adjustments we can make in our daily life is limiting our use of pesticides (or better yet, stopping altogether). Casting our minds back to the start of this year, the suggestion that previously banned pesticides would be re-entering the UK sent alarm bells ringing, although the full impact of what will actually happen remains to be seen. Regardless, pesticides that are harmful to bees are also harmful to our wider food and supply chain.

May also sees the return of the annual No Mow May initiative, encouraging gardeners to let the lawn grow just that bit extra during the month in order to maximise the amount of pollen bees can capture and therefore, enhance biodiversity. Even a couple of additional growing weeks can have a significant impact.

However we choose to help bees on the 20^th of May, we should be mindful of our environmental impacts throughout the whole of the year if bees are to recover. Starting with education and finishing with action will give them the best possible chance of thriving in a warming world.