BeeCause….

Posted by Nikiah, under Adventures of a mompreneur. Leave a Comment.
A little over a year ago I became interested in bees, why you may ask- Bees?
Well it happened a little like this…..
I read a beautiful book about the spiritual aspect of bee keeping,  and then a friend sent me a web-site with a little video documentary called The Vanishing Bees, which is all about the disappearance of bees on our planet due to a myrid of reasons.
The Vanishing of the Bees takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political,ecological and spiritual implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee. It says : The bees have a message - but will we listen?
This is where a good friend of mine came in, I sent her the link and she was as deeply affected as I was. Right away we got together for a cup of  tea wondering if this could be something we could possibly do? Could we actually keep honey bees in our back yards here in the city?
As a parent I felt in my heart that this would be an amazing experience for my children, to be able to learn about life cycles in such an up close, and hands on way.  For them to learn about, pollination, the intricate ways that bees communicate and work together,as well as the healing benefits of honey, and–well I could go on and on…

And so with a tiny bit of digging we discovered that was it was possible to keep honey bees here in the city, and that in fact many folks already doing it here in Vancouver, and in cities all over the world!
The next step was looking into the responsibility of such an undertaking, and I realized that for this summer, our family was just too busy to keep bees responsibly.
However my sweet friend Nao did it! She took a very intensive course and received a certificate in Bee keeping, she bought her first colony along with everything she needed to begin, and even Blogged about it– yes–it was a very exciting time for us both as I was there on the side lines cheering her on!
Not only that, but since I was planning to at some point to keep honey bees, I decided that I would be at her house as much as possible for the journey, learning and watching…
Then a few weeks ago Nao was asked if she would be willing to be filmed with her bees for Shaw TV–and if you click here you can see it!
So far it has been an amazing experience, and a few weeks ago I spend a few hours in Nao’s her back yard garden helping her to harvest the first honey, and then later that day we popped over to do some extracting–it was a very sticky day!                                                 

Most of this honey will go back to the bees for their long winter months, but there were many jars that could be kept, and I received a big one!
The kids also spent some time over at Nao’s house and learned a lot about bee keeping, honey, pollen, how not to get stung, and keeping skunks away!

It is to this end that I am pleased to say that next spring our backyard will welcome our very first  sponsored boxes of bees!
These bees will be kept by Nao and her  new upcoming project started called:
The BeeCause Pollination Project that I am helping get off of the ground.
This project will hopefully bring together school children, folks interested in helping the planet, and communities to help stop the decline of the Honey Bee!
I will keep posting about this very exciting endeavor, as things unfold….
I would also love to hear your thoughts on this subject, and if any of you out there are also bee keepers that live in the city!
Have a great long week-end!
Nikiah
Mama Goddess Birth Shop