Building a Sustainable Future - One Flower at a Time - National Honey Bee Day

August 20, 2011 is a day to appreciate your honey - and the bees that produce it. It is National Honey Bee Day!

Protecting honey bees is another important reason to eliminate chemicals from your landscape. National Honey Bee Day will help you to understand why.

National Honey Bee Day was started by grassroots minded beekeepers to build community awareness of the bee industry, through education and promotion.  

The primary goals of the National Honey Bee Day Program include:  
1) Promotion and advancement of beekeeping.  
2) Educate the public about honey bees and beekeeping.  
3) Make the public aware of environmental concerns as they effect honey bees.

I've often mentioned the importance of pollinators and the dangers they face because of chemicals that some gardeners use in their gardens (among other things). The National Honey Bee Day website states:

We ask that every beekeeper join in this cause. We ask that backyard gardeners, those who love nature, environmental groups, and folks from every corner of society get involved and support saving the honey bee.

It's just not the honey bee in peril. Bats, butterflies, frogs, and other native pollinators are all being killed off through the increased use of chemicals and new lethal pesticides, herbicide, and fungicides on the market. The honey bee industry has suffered several years now with staggering losses due to "Colony Collapse Disorder". Yet to date, not one chemical has been banned or one farming practice changed. But the losses continue to mount year after year. 

There will be several National Honey Bee Day events in the area.

National Honey Bee Day at Sky Meadows State Park - 8/20/2011 - 11am - 4pm

Honey Bee Festival - Norfolk Botanic Gardens - 8/20/2100 - 10am - ?

But if you can't attend either one, I encourage you to visit the National Honey Bee Day website to learn more about the dangers facing honey bees - and the many reasons we need them!

For more information about bees, and other pollinators, visit:

Enjoying the Birds & Bees in Your Own Back Yard - Gardening to Attract Pollinators

10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Honey Bees

First Rooftop Garden Built for Bees

10 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Honey Bees

Ahhhh, there is nothing quite like a little bit of coffee and chocolate to brighten the day!

As I sip and nibble, delighting in the heady aroma and sweet, savory flavors, my mind always wanders to the birds and the bees. Why? Because both chocolate and coffee are two of the 1000+ plants that depend on visits from the birds and the bees (and other pollinators) to help spread the love, or in their case, pollen, from flower to flower.

I love wandering through my garden and hearing the buzz of the visiting bees. But bees have many more talents that just pollinating our plants.

Here is a list of 10 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Honey Bees, which I collected from the Health Benefits of Honey Blog:

1) Bees tongues can help sniff out bombs – A company called Inscentinel Ltd. has developed Vapor Detection Instrumentation, which is scientific speak for a couple of bees taped to a piece of foam. The bees stick out their tongues when they smell an odor they have been trained to detect.

2) Honey bees can recognize faces – the honey bee, with a brain barely bigger than a pin head, can remember human faces for days after seeing them.

3) Bees are the only insects that produce edible food for humans (did you know that honey is actually bee puke? Ugh)

4) Some working bees can lift (in addition to their own bodies) 100% of their body weight.

5) Bees have been around (100 million years) much longer than humans (7 million years).

6) The queen bee lives up to 40 times longer than a worker bee.

7) The ONLY purpose in life, for the male bee, is to "service" the queen bee — and then he dies.

8) 3400 honey bees were taken on a NASA space flight.

9) Honey bees only use their stinger on vertebrates. When the bees are up against an invertebrate (such as a wasp) the worker bees will cluster around the insect and literally flex their muscles until the resulting heat kills the intruder. And if the heat doesn’t kill them, the lack of oxygen surely will.

10) The origin of the word honeymoon – In days of old, newlyweds were given a month’s worth of mead – a honey based booze – which they were to drink daily. The tradition was believed to promote matrimonial happiness and pregnancy… both things alcohol is very good at. We’ve been honeymooning ever since.

Stop back by on Monday when we'll have a post on How to Attract Pollinators to Your Garden