20th May is World Bee Day. How will you be celebrating these really significant insects?

The main purpose of World Bee Day is to spread awareness of the significance of bees in both urban and rural settings and other pollinators for our survival. World Bee Day is an opportunity to put bees at the centre of the national conversation for a day and encourage actions that create more bee-friendly landscapes. Whether on farms or gardens, bees and some other insects are crucial for pollinating food crops.  It’s not too late to register an event to help spread the word in your area. Keep an eye on the World Bee Day website to see the events list grow, then join celebrations near you.

How we’re celebrating

Farmers Markets Australia-wide

This year, we are excited to announce a partnership with the Australian Farmers Markets Association (AFMA). Wheen Bee Foundation has worked with AFMA to produce kits for Farmers Market managers across Australia to make it easy for them to run a bee-themed market that celebrates bees. Numerous Farmers Markets operating between 15-23 May will be decking out in yellow for World Bee Day. You can find your local market contact on the World Bee Day website  or the AFMA website

Why not reach out to your local Farmers Market manager and see what skills you can share to help support them on the day. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to have observation hives or bee suits or beekeeping tools and equipment to help set the scene. They’ll be looking for people to run talks, help with (COVID-safe) honey tastings, talk about bee-friendly plants …. The list of ideas is endless. Please support these initiatives where you can.

Feature Films

Bees of Grand Staircase- Escalante

There are 660 species of bee found at Grand Staircase- Escalante; almost as many as all of eastern USA.  This film is a research documentary first released in September 2020. It follows two bee researchers as they return to their backcountry stomping grounds in southern Utah. Twenty years ago they showed us what an incredible hot spot for bee diversity this place is; now they follow up on that work as the protections for these lands are being stripped away.

See the short here

This film will be shown as an online screening from 20th May. Bookings are essential and can be made via the World Bee Day Website. A viewing licence will last for 72 hours so If you cannot watch it that night, you can watch it over the weekend from the comfort of your home.

The Pollinators

If you haven’t seen this film already, it is a must-see documentary about migratory beekeeping in USA.  Tens of billions of honey bees are transported back and forth from one end of the United States to the other in a unique annual migration that’s indispensable to the feeding of America. One out of every three bites we eat, the growth of almost all our fruits, nuts and vegetables would be impossible without pollination from bees. The Pollinators presents the fascinating and untold story and warns that the bees are in terrible danger.

Why not host a cinema screening of this film near you and have a panel discussion after the film to provide an Australian context?

For the kids

Waggle Dance Challenge

It’s on again! The Waggle Dance Challenge is a fun activity for children that teaches how bees communicate using the waggle. The dancer becomes a bee and performs a kind of ‘bee-boogie’ to the waggle dance song ‘we need plants and plants need us, buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz’.

Record the waggle dance performance and upload to the website and your video may be included in our Waggle 21 compilation. We are aiming for 20,000 video uploads in recognition of the 20,000 species of bee that exist globally.

The Waggle Dance Challenge is an initiative of Rotary Club of Canterbury, Rotarians for Bees and Wheen Bee Foundation with support from Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Canberra, Embassy of Sweden, Embassy of Switzerland in Australia and Demand Film. Special thanks to Costa Georgiadis who provided a lovely introduction to the Waggle Dance instructional video that explains all the moves.

Create your own family event

Make your garden bee-friendly

It is really easy to make a difference to bees by making your garden or balcony more bee-friendly.  Get together with friends or the kids, buy some bee-attracting plants and pop them in the ground or just some pots. Bees and the other pollinators will thank you for it.  See how here!

Build a nest for pollinators

Bees and other pollinators don’t have so many places to live now in our ever-growing cities.  But you can easily make simple places for them to nest.  See how here

Find or register events at www.worldbeeday.org.au for free.

Come and join us to celebrate Bees on World Bee Day 2021!