Honeybees gathering nectar. Their bodies pick up pollen, which they rubs off on the next flower they visit (photos © The Honeybee Conservancy).

Last week, The Honeybee Conservancy launched a new initiative: Bee The Solution.

It’s a nationwide call-to-action and educational tour to raise awareness around bee conservation and the important role bees play in our society and local communities.

Bees are essential to grow hundreds of basic crops helping with food production and sustainability.

These little pollinators travel from plant to plant collecting nectar to make honey.

In the process, the plant’s pollen adheres to their bodies, and in a vital interaction, they inadvertently transfer the pollen from flower to flower, which pollinates the plants.

This process:

 
For the launch event, The Honeybee Conservancy created a six-foot-tall beehive with some 70,000 bees in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Oh yes: It was in the shape of the Empire State Building.

As part of the program, the Conservancy wants you to sponsor a beehive.

Sponsor-A-Hive is an annual program targeting two major issues in the U.S.: declining bee populations and limited access to food in low-income communities.

Each year, Sponsor-A-Hive selects partner organizations to which they deliver native bees or honey bees along with their hives, beekeeping equipment, and continuous training and support.

Sponsor-a-Hive recipients also participate in the Conservancy’s Bee Ambassadors program, with discussions that advance science and environmental education.

Equipped with materials such as lesson plans and presentations,Bee Ambassadors deliver hands-on, motivating programs about bees.

In their new homes, the bees thrive, pollinate, and help boost the crop yield of community gardens.

Your organization—school, community garden, etc.—can help to create a more sustainable America by caring for a beehive that pollinates and educates.

Help to build a movement dedicated to reclaiming habitat and protecting the bees that are so necessary to our local ecosystems and food systems.

Over the last ten years, the national Sponsor-A-Hive program has deployed 10 million bees into underserved communities in 44 states, producing half a million pounds of food and helping many thousands of people gain access to organic, sustainable food.

DISCOVER MORE HERE.