Bees are incredibly important to our planet’s ecosystem. To start, bees are responsible for pollinating around 100 different human food crops, which provide around 90 percent of the world’s nutrition! Without bees, we’d no longer have the delight of enjoying foods like broccoli, asparagus, cantaloupes, cucumbers, pumpkins, blueberries, watermelons, almonds, apples, cranberries, and cherries … just to name a few. Bees beautify the planet by pollinating flowers, which in turn helps other insects and birds and they also act as environmental indicators of sorts, notifying us when something is awry in our ecosystems.
Despite all of the wonderful things these tiny guys do for us, bees are some of the most under appreciated creatures on the planet. Their populations are on the decline due to the loss of habitat, as well as an increase in the use of chemicals, such as insecticides and fertilizers, on crops, which also have a negative effect on the bees who absorb them through pollination.
Thankfully, people are starting to become more aware of the importance of these laborious insects and are raising awareness about their struggle and helping create more bee-friendly spaces for them.
British tea company, Taylors of Harrogate, for instance, decided to bring attention to the plight of bees in a pretty creative way: building them a mini luxury hotel!
Modelled after the Grand Budapest Hotel from the popular Wes Anderson film, the company shared that they built the structure to raise awareness and pamper the little insects who help make their fruity tea taste so flavourful.
They also shed light on the fact that Britain’s flower meadows and natural wildlife habitats have been shrinking due to urban expansion and that bees desperately need safe havens if they are going to have a fighting chance at surviving.
From the looks of it, the bees have been enjoying the hotel quite a bit! Here they are making the most of the “Peppermint Leaf Pool.”
The tea company also included a “Rose Lemon Restaurant” where the bees can do what they do best: suckle on sweet nectar.
The hotel is a great conversation piece to get people talking about bees and what we can be doing to ensure their survival!
While not everyone can build a full-blown bee hotel in their backyard, there are still many ways you can help these important insects. The tea company is encouraging people to build any sort of structure that bees can hang out in, plant bee-friendly plants in the garden, and of course spreading the word about the importance of bees and their declining populations. To learn more about what you can do to help bees, click here.
Source: http://www.onegreenplanet.org