Let give bees a chance!
Last June the students in the Principality of Monaco participated in the APIdays national awareness events organized by beekeepers from the French National Union of Beekeeping (UNAF) in more than 80 towns. Youngsters from the Ecole des Revoires had the unique opportunity to learn about the process for extracting honey and get actively involved in awareness workshops on the role bees play in pollination, with everyone of them taking home a pot of “Monaco honey 2015”.
Thanks to the partnership agreement signed between Monaco and UNAF in 2011, six hives belonging to the beekeeper Jacques Balavoine were installed in the roof terrace of the Philately and Coinage Museum, and every year awareness activities are organized on the theme “Bees: environmental sentinels.”
It is a sad fact that millions of bees are dying off, with dangerous consequences for our environment and by extension our food supply. Bees pollinate everything from almonds to strawberries to the alfalfa used to feed dairy cows. Bees pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90% of most of the world’s food. So what would have if the bees disappeared: No Bees, No Food.
Scientists have demonstrated that global warming, habitat loss, parasites and bee-killing insecticides known as neonics, are some of the causes behind their disappearance.
The Bee House should be placed against a flat surface and located in an area protected from high winds. The front of the house should have a south or southwest exposure where it will get the most sun in winter to keep bees warm. After bees mate, the female places eggs in the bamboo tubes.
Bee houses are very useful as they pollinate fruit crops. Gardeners can easily encourage these bees by proving artificial nest sites, by drilling holes in dry logs or blocks of wood. These bee houses are also called ‘trap nests’, or in America, ‘beecondos’.
A honey bees house is an enclosed naturally occurring or artificial structure where the bees of the genus Apies dwell and raise their pupae. A man-made or artificial structure created for domesticated honeybees is known as a beehive. The place where beekeepers keep these beehives is called an apiary or a bee yard.