Bee Aware: Continuing to Educate Ourselves and Our Kids About Why Bees Matter

Many of you have already read my posts about the National Planting Week initiative whereby Canadians have been able to order free seed kits to plant their own ‘Buzzing Gardens’ filled with wildflowers that provide a good source of nutrition for pollinators such as honey bees.

My family participated and planted our own Buzzing Garden. You can see how beautifully our garden has grown so far.  We already have flowers in bloom!  I am also including some photos below so that you can appreciate the variety of plants that are already growing.

Although National Planting Week is now over, the issues facing Canadian honey bees are not. That said, with National Planting Week recently over, it seems the perfect time to build on our kids’ interest in the issue and educate them ( and ourselves!) further and the perfect place to do that is on the beesmatter.ca website

The site offers a WEALTH of information  (and I am not using that term loosely). There are great little videos that explains various aspects of the the situation of honey bees in Canada so that anyone can understand.  There are MANY articles that touch upon the relevant issues. There are even TOOLKITS for teachers-specified by province and grade-level!

I recommend visiting the Honey Bee Learning Center.  You can click on those pink words to get there or you can click on the button that says “EXPLORE ALL OF OUR LEARNING CENTRE RESOURCES” directly from the home page. In this section you will find all of the resources that Bees Matter has to offer, laid out in a very easy-to-navigate

As explained in the About section, the Bees Matter website is one of several initiatives to work together with beekeepers, scientists, environmentalists and everyday Canadians to improve honey bee health. It’s an initiative to shed light on the many factors affecting honey bee health, and to do so based on a foundation of good science.

Here are 3 easy things you can do to ensure we continue to “Bee Aware” of honey bee health in Canada:

• If you don’t feel like staying indoors reading on a computer screen with your child when the weather is gorgeous outside, then make a list of “Things to do on a rainy day this summer” and make a note to visit the BeesMatter.ca website with your child.  If there interest has already been sparked, then nourish it. If not, then perhaps this will spark it.
• When the fall comes, speak with your kids’ schools about whether they can integrate into the classroom a unit on honey bee health in Canada.  Direct them to the BeesMatter.ca website…the Toolkits are ready and waiting for them!
• When your child can’t figure out what to do for a science project this year, remember the honey bees!  Younger kids projects can focus on the history of honey bees in Canada as well as the current situation, or even explain how projects like National Planting Week can make a difference. A project might involve explaining WHY honey bees are so important to Canada’s food supply. More advanced projects for older kids or teen can get into the technology that is used to help honeybees, or even imagining an invention of their own that might be beneficial to honeybee health.  Again, refer the kids to the BeesMatter.ca website as this will be a fantastic resource for them no matter what age they are.

Many people don’t realize that one out of every three bites of food that we eat is made possible by pollinators like honey bees.  That’s why we need to work with our farmers to protect the environment. We also need to protect those farmers and their crops, so we can protect the communities they serve. And it all relies on continuing to protect the honey bee

Because Bees Matter.

Tanya

Disclosure: I am proud to be partnering with Bees Matter to help spread the word about National Planting Week and how everyone can order their FREE seed packets to grown their very own Buzzing Gardens and help honey bees and other pollinators in Canada. As with all sponsored posts, I will only ever share with you products and/or services I believe in. All opinions contained within are my own and cannot be bought 🙂