How Can You Support Bees, Beekeepers & Nature?
Video - How to Help Bees, Beekeeping & Nature? Featuring Francesco Panella, President of BeeLife
At BeeLife, we follow different dossiers at European level to help ensure a better future for bees, beekeeping and the environment. But it is not just policy but everyone's actions that influence the most. That is why Francesco Panella, President of BeeLife, gives a few tips on how you can help bees, beekeepers and nature. First, inform yourself about the varieties of flowers and flower-honeys. By doing this, you can select the best ones for your consumption. It will not only help you benefit widely from the surprising variety available, but you will be supporting beekeepers through the appreciation of their labour. In particular, you can help by consuming local brands of honey, thus favouring local beekeepers and avoiding risks related to counterfeit, improper labelling and low quality of honey. It is a win-win for beekeepers, bees and, especially, for yourself who will enjoy exceptional honey. Besides choosing the right products, there are many activities you can do. You can plant flowers, lots and lots of them while avoiding consuming some sunflowers and others type of flowers that do not provide nectar or pollen, but are widely used in agriculture today. Don't forget that bees, like us, need resources. The more flowers in their surroundings, the likelier bees will thrive, leading to better pollination, more biodiversity and better hive-related products for you. Besides, you can protect insects, firstly by understanding that they are part of life. Of the entire percentage of living species in the face of the Earth, we vertebrates are but the 3%. And vegetable life is 17%. Therefore, the most significant percentage of living species are invertebrates. It is them who are at the foundation of all life on Earth. So start by understanding the impact of small living beings on the vital process and protect it for what is worth. Once you think about it, you will notice that safeguarding insects, has more added value than only protecting the panda. Of course, all nature merits and needs protection, and the panda is an image that is close to us because it is a vertebrate. A big, beautiful bear. But, we also need to protect dragonflies. Because a world without them, or without bees, has no future.