The American actor and director Morgan Freeman has converted his 124-acre ranch in Mississippi into a bee sanctuary, having taken up beekeeping in 2014. On The Tonight Show he talked about his motivation to become an apiarist. He said: “There is a concerted effort for bringing bees back onto the planet. We do not realise that they are the foundation, I think, of the growth of the planet, the vegetation…”
The continued decline of bee colonies has caused alarm because of its contributing effect on a number of ecological and agricultural issues, with the insects being a key pollinator for plants. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has highlighted Colony Collapse Disorder as a primary cause for the decline of bees over the past five years. Governments have been urged to ban bee-killing pesticides, but there are also things that the general public can do – an effective way to revive local bee populations, for example, is to plant flowers that bees particularly like in gardens.
Meanwhile, more than one million gardeners around the world have signed up to a campaign to help save the bee population. Over 1,040,000 gardens are now registered with the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge, organised by the US-based National Pollinator Garden Network. The initiative spans the US, Europe, Canada and Mexico, and is seeing homeowners turn their gardens and yards into a combined 5 million acres of bee-friendly habitat.
The gardeners have pledged to plant native pollinator-friendly flowers and wild grasses, as well as provide areas that are sheltered from wind and exposure to direct sunlight; they are also adding water sources to their gardens and limiting their use of pesticides.
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The American actor and director Morgan Freeman has converted his 124-acre ranch in Mississippi into a bee sanctuary, having taken up beekeeping in 2014. On The Tonight Show he talked about his motivation to become an apiarist. He said: “There is a concerted effort for bringing bees back onto the planet. We do not realise that they are the foundation, I think, of the growth of the planet, the vegetation…”
The continued decline of bee colonies has caused alarm because of its contributing effect on a number of ecological and agricultural issues, with the insects being a key pollinator for plants. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has highlighted Colony Collapse Disorder as a primary cause for the decline of bees over the past five years. Governments have been urged to ban bee-killing pesticides, but there are also things that the general public can do – an effective way to revive local bee populations, for example, is to plant flowers that bees particularly like in gardens.
Meanwhile, more than one million gardeners around the world have signed up to a campaign to help save the bee population. Over 1,040,000 gardens are now registered with the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge, organised by the US-based National Pollinator Garden Network. The initiative spans the US, Europe, Canada and Mexico, and is seeing homeowners turn their gardens and yards into a combined 5 million acres of bee-friendly habitat.
The gardeners have pledged to plant native pollinator-friendly flowers and wild grasses, as well as provide areas that are sheltered from wind and exposure to direct sunlight; they are also adding water sources to their gardens and limiting their use of pesticides.