I often think about the huge amount of passion that drives small businesses in Australia and around the globe. My love for bees keeps me up at night, and I am always looking for new ways to encourage people to help the environment. I love watching other small businesses succeed because they too are run on passion. And, on the flip side, there is nothing better than seeing a shift in consumer spending toward local ventures. From these observations, I know with all my heart that there is a strong community in Australia that really understands why small-scale enterprises are vital, not just for the country’s economic wellbeing, but its spiritual wellbeing too.
When you buy from a small business, you are taking home something unique, something made with passion, something that took determination. And the money you gave to that retailer or independent goes back into helping them contribute more to our society. It doesn’t get much better than that.
As I mentioned last week, I am currently needing a little support myself. In September, the 46th APIMONDIA International Apicultural Congress takes place in Montreal, Canada. This year’s event includes workshops, presentations and symposiums from experts in apiculture and agriculture from all over the world—it’s the perfect opportunity for me to learn about new areas of beekeeping development, and to bring these ideas back to Australia. This particular Congress is important to me, as the theme is “Working Together in Agriculture.” As a country kid, I continue to have a great deal to do with professionals working in different forms of agriculture in Australia.
If just 1000 of my Instagram followers, or a tiny 5% of my Facebook friends, bought a Ben’s Bees Organic Lip Balm (perfect for protecting your lips against the elements, rain, hail, or shine), I would be able to attend this event. My online shop is stocked up with many other useful and environmentally-friendly products, too! Ben’s Bees Organic Lip Balm is just $7.80 with free postage in Australia. And please, pass this message onto your friends! A big thank you to those who have helped me so far and to those who will, Love Ben xx ... See MoreSee Less
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Why Almonds Need Bees to Survive!
Let’s take a minute to think of all the crops that need bees to survive. Hold on, only a minute!? We need more time! Yes, there are so many food crops that rely on pollination by pollinators, and bees are the most productive and effective.
But almonds are a special crop as they are 100% reliant on bees for their pollination! Let’s break this down a little further. Most popular almond varieties you can think of are not self-fertile—this is when plants have small flowers that shed their pollen straight onto the stigma. Instead, almonds require cross-pollination, a process where the pollination of a flower or plant needs to happen from another flower or plant. In theory, in order to produce a single almond, a tree needs one granule of pollen from another compatible variety at the right time.
This is of course where the bees come in! They are the only insect that can facilitate this process—to cross-pollinate almond trees. And for this reason, from all corners of the globe, almond growers and farmers depend hugely on strong, happy, and healthy honey bee colonies to ensure that their crops survive. And big populations too (approximately 3 strong colonies for 17 acres)! This is because single bees not only have to visit different flowers of the same tree, they then have to transfer that pollen to other trees of a different variety that are located up to ten metres away.
And the complications don’t stop there! The almond tree (depending on its variety) is hugely dependent on weather conditions, and the duration of flowering ranges from 4 to 30 days. It is therefore vital that the almond grower facilitates all this cross-pollination activity during this small window of time, as well as ensuring competing weeds and plants don’t distract the bees from their task.
But where do all the bees come from you might ask? Well, it’s most common for almond growers to rent huge numbers of bees during this time. Transported overnight when the bees are asleep and to avoid people being stung, the colonies are sent temporarily to almond plantations to help with this pollination process. Once again, bees to the rescue! #bees ... See MoreSee Less
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