DAY 18
You’ve Planted 5,000 Flowers for Honey Bees on Farms That Produce Healthy Food
Together with Project Apis m.
🤝
What is your positive impact today?
Today, you’ve helped plant 5,000 flowers for honey bees on farms that produce healthy food. This is part of a larger Seeds for Bees program that provides free seeds and technical assistance to farmers, to increase the density, diversity, and duration of bee forage throughout our agricultural landscape.
In this way, you’ve helped encourage the adoption of cover crops to support honey bee health and promote sustainable farming practices. The benefits of these cover crops include improved soil health, reduced soil erosion, and enhanced forage. And healthier bees lead to better pollination, increased crop yields for growers, and reduced losses with improved honey production for beekeepers—a win-win for farmers and bees!
💚
Why is your impact important?
Honey bees are essential pollinators in modern agricultural systems. In fact, 1 in every 3 bites of food we eat depends on honey bee pollination. The production of many fruits, nuts, and vegetables that add nutrition, taste, and color to our diets requires insect pollination. The honey bee is the largest managed pollinator, helping pollinate approximately 75% of global food crops. Globally, 28-61% of crop systems are pollinator-limited, like blueberries, apples, and coffee, and require honey bee assistance to flourish.
Unfortunately, honey bee health is under threat from pests, pathogens, poor nutrition, less forage, pesticides, and climate change. And more and more honey bee colonies are lost every year.
⚒️
How are we achieving your impact together?
Our impactful partner for today is Project Apis m. Through their Seeds for Bees program, they offer up to two years of free seeds for growers and beekeepers to encourage the adoption of forage-dense cover crops in and around California orchards. In this way, they have already impacted more than 256k honey bee colonies, enrolled 279 farmers, and enabled seed planting in 103k total acres.
Their overarching goal is to better understand the challenges honey bees face and focus on developing practical tools and solutions. Their Seeds for Bees and Habitat programs collaborate with agriculture to improve pollinator health directly and immediately while also addressing other threats such as Varroa mites, pathogens, and pesticides.
More About Project Apis m.
Project Apis m. was founded in 2006, named after Apis mellifera, the scientific name for the honey bee. Their mission is to fund research and efforts to improve honey bee health and vitality. They have funded over $12 million into practical research and $4 million into habitat and forage programs, resulting in 103,000 acres of forage planted in CA and 197 research projects across the US and Canada.
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.
– Albert Einstein; one of the most influential scientists, best known for developing the theory of relativity and his contributions to quantum mechanics
