World Honey Bee Day - Be as busy as a bee!

We often take nature for granted. We don’t think about the pivotal role that all of life’s creatures play. However, World Honey Bee Day gives you the perfect opportunity to pay honour to the incredible honey bee. Read on to discover everything you need to know about this day, as well as the critical role that honeybees play in our everyday lives. 

What is World Honey Bee Day
World Honey Bee Day is an awareness day whereby honey bee enthusiasts, beekeeping associations and clubs, and beekeepers around the globe celebrate the honey bee. It is a day to recognise the contribution that honeybees make to our everyday lives, as well as learning about the different steps that we can take to protect this vital species. On World Honey Bee Day, we also pay homage to beekeepers. After all, it is their efforts that make sure that there are healthy and well-managed bees to pollinate crops. 

The health benefits of honey
Of course, honeybees provide us with honey, and this is one of the many reasons why we should be thankful for them! Honey is a golden, thick liquid, which is produced by bees using the nectar of plants that are flowering. The kind of flowers that bees visit will impact the texture, smell, and taste of the honey, resulting in different types of honey, including orange blossom, clover, Rewarewa, tawari and manuka honey.

There are a lot of nutritional benefits that are associated with adding a bit of honey to your diet. High-quality honey offers several benefits because of the antioxidants that are included. These include phenolic compounds, such as flavonoids, as well as organic acids. The antioxidants that are found in honey have been linked to lowering the risk of strokes, heart attacks, and some forms of cancer. They are also believed to assist in terms of eye health.

There have also been studies that have shown that honey can help to improve your cholesterol levels. If you have high LDL cholesterol levels, then you are going to be at a greater risk of having heart disease. This sort of cholesterol plays a massive role in atherosclerosis, which is the fatty build-up in your arteries that can cause strokes and heart attacks as well. There are more and more studies that are showing that honey can help to enhance your cholesterol levels. This is because it significantly raises the good HDL cholesterol while lowering the total of bad LDL cholesterol. 

Honey cannot only benefit you in terms of consuming it, but it has been used for many years as a topical treatment for healing burns and wounds. In fact, this can be dated back to Ancient Egypt. Researchers have concluded that the healing powers of honey come from the anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects it has, as well as its ability to nourish the tissue that surrounds the wounded area. 

Bees are disappearing
Bees are critical to our daily living, yet they are in decline on a worldwide scale. This is because they face several different threats. The use of toxic pesticides is one of these threats. They are also at risk due to habitat loss, as there has been an increase in invasive farming methods and urban developments, meaning that places that honeybees used to call home do not exist anymore. In honour of World Honey Bee Day, it is good to do your bit in order to raise awareness regarding the risks that honeybees all around the world face and the steps that we can take in order to help them.

You can begin by researching this issue so that you can find more information about the different challenges that bees face and the reasons why their population is on the decline. By doing this, you will then be able to educate others and we can all do our bit to make sure that the number of bees starts to increase again, rather than decline.

History of World Honey Bee Day
World Honey Bee Day, previously known as Honey Bee Awareness Day, is an idea put together by beekeepers in the USA, who petitioned the USDA in 2009 for an official day to honour honeybees and beekeeping. A few years down the line, people across the globe are holding a date of observation every year.

The organizers of the event, on the concept of the World Honey Bee Day, have said:
“Bring together beekeepers, bee associations, as well as other interested groups to connect with the communities to advance beekeeping. By working together and harnessing the efforts that so many already accomplish, and [by] using a united effort one day a year, the rewards and message is magnified many times over. We encourage bee associations, individuals, and other groups to get involved. The program is free and open to all”.

How to celebrate World Honey Bee Day
Honey Bee awareness enthusiasts will likely put a bee in your bonnet and say this is not so much a day to celebrate honeybees, as it is to promote their involvement in sustainable farming.

On this day, bee lovers everywhere decorate their gardens with lavender, borage, and marjoram, the bee’s knees in pollinator lures. If you have the time and patience, bake with honey. Hers some great recipes for you to try: https://www.viva.co.nz/article/food-drink/honey-recipes/

We also recommend that you take the time to learn more about the honeybee on this day and how we can all do our bit in order to provide them with a supportive environment. When we plant orchards, wildflowers, and other types of flowering plants, we are supporting pollinators, which includes honeybees. Honeybees depend on the nectar of different plants in order to survive. We also need to recognise that we depend on honeybees for our own survival. After all, if they did not pollinate, a lot of the nutritious plants that we need would not reproduce. It’s all about the circle of life, and we should do our bit to help other specious along the way.

Another way to celebrate World Honey Bee Day is by enjoying a honey-based treat. There are lots of different options for you to choose from. Honey can be enjoyed on its own, as a family favourite on your morning toast or as a natural sweetener in both warm and cold drinks and home baking. Add to smoothies. Use in all types of marinating, cooking, and preserving.

Reference Source: World Honey Bee Day