Kiwis Winging It To New York City to Help Save Our Bees

Perhaps I need my head read or maybe it is a mid life crisis but I have committed to running the New York Marathon this year in November! Needless to say I have never run anywhere in my life, unless you count running after small children. I made the mistake of reading Kerre Woodhams book Short Fat Chicken to Marathon Runner'' over Summer. A great book and very inspiring- obviously. I figured if Kerre can, Janet can. I started running to the first lamp post and then walking ( puffing ) to the next in my first training runs. I very quickly realised that if I was going to run anywhere I need a cause to keep me motivated.

Why New York?

New York City has only just made bee keeping legal. Before this, bees were classed with bears, skunks and other dangerous animals and prohibited within city limits. Now bee keepers can keep bees legally on roof tops, in townhouse gardens or even apartment balconies. New York is seeing a huge increase in people wanting to keep bees as many people are aware of the plight that honey bees are in World wide. Indeed USA has lost over 70% of hives last year through Colony Collapse Disorder.

An urban front yard complete with chicken dome and Top Bar beehive. This hive produced over 16 litres of honey this summer. Plenty to share with family and friends. Enough honey was left in the hive over winter for the bees.

Urban bees do better than their rural sisters due to a varied and often year round pollen and nectar source. If you think of all the schools, private gardens, parks, botanical gardens, window boxes, street plantings and roof gardens in a city, it is easy to see that there is a smorgasbord of food for bees. In the country fields can be  planted with huge mono-crops of corn or wheat- useless to bees. Hedgerows are removed to accommodate bigger fields also decreasing food sources. Crops are sprayed with insecticides killing any foraging bees.

Comb honey fresh from the bees.

Why Should We Care About Bees?
5.1 billion dollars of New Zealands economy is attributed to pollination by honey bees, domestic honey sales and exports, beeswax and exported honey bees. One third of  all our food we eat is pollinated by honey bees. Without them forget about ever eating apples, pears, berries, oranges, cucumbers, kiwifruit, beans or other yummy tasty food. Even the clover cows eat to produce milk for us requires pollination by honey bees,  Forty percent of all ice cream flavours need bees to pollinate them. 

Around $81 million worth of honey is exported each year. Including the World famous Manuka honey. About 3 251 New Zealand's keep bees. The most alarming thing is that recently it has been reported that Colony Collapse Disorder may have arrived in NZ. The National Beekeepers Association are presently conducting a study into an alarming rise in loss of bee hives due to unexplained deaths.

Because of Varroa and other bee diseases that man has spread, bees now need our managed care to keep them healthy and alive. Wild colonies do not survive for longer than a year due to the Varroa mite.

Save Our Bees Charitable Trust
This New Zealand Trust has recently been set up to support and educate people about the importance of honey bees and encourage more people to keep one or two hives in their garden, especially in urban areas. The Trust runs free workshops on how to keep bees in a low cost, simple, sustainable and bee friendly Top Bar Hive and provides free support and information on how to plant bee friendly gardens, manage a hive, legal requirements etc.

What We Hope to Achieve by running the New York Marathon
We hope to increase the profile on the plight of the honey bee world wide, and particularly New Zealand. We hope to promote more people keeping hives in their backyard or planting a more bee friendly garden and avoiding the use of toxic sprays or coated seeds. 45 000  people run the NY marathon and they are watched on by 2 million spectators. We also plan to visit Manhattan bee keepers and learn how they successfully keep bees in such a huge metropolis. We will hope to translate this information and knowledge back to New Zealand for local situations and environments.

We Need your Help
Save Our Bees needs help with fundraising and sponsorship to help promote this important cause and raise profile on the importance of honey bees. If you can help or know of any corporate companies that may be interested please contact us here.

If you are running the NY Marathon this year and would like to run for Save Our Bees and help us raise the profile of the Trust and Sponsors please contact us here