We like posting fun news on Fridays to set the tone for your weekend. It may still be spring, but summer is edging in around the world. In the southern USA, heat, humidity and longer days remind us the sun is getting higher in the sky.
On May 20, 2020, the world celebrated World Bee Day on the birthday of the Slovenian beekeeping and apiculture pioneer, Anton Janša, who was born in 1734. The United Nations defines the 2020 theme as “Save the Bees” and this is our mantra everyday at Bee Mission. The purpose is to find solutions to protect bees and other pollinators like butterflies, moths and bats. These precious creatures live with the global threat of extinction due to human activities. Let's maintain their natural habitat... buy local honey… plant bee-friendly plants in our gardens… talk more about bees.
What a perfect time for video games that promote awareness about bees to enter the marketplace! This is a great way for young people to learn about bees without studying, and when you're having fun it all sticks like honey!
The simulation game called Bee Simulator will be released on Steam at the end of 2020. Live a big adventure as a small bee and explore a world that is brimming over with life as you dodge dangerous wasps, save your hive and collect pollen. Check out BEE SIMULATOR on Steam.
Here's an exciting 1:08-minute sneak peek:
Check out the official game website for Bee Simulator. Meet the cutest bees you've ever seen, living in an enchanted world.
A while back we blogged that Minecraft has Bees. Since then, there's been a serious update (only on Java and Bedrock editions of Minecraft). On December 10, 2019 Buzzy Bees launched and it's all about the bees, which were a super big hit! Check it out and discover how bees can build beehives, fill them with honey, speed up crop growth, breathe new life into their surroundings, and what’s up with homey hives and sticky honey. This expanded world of bees is rich and colorful as well as awesome fun. To read more about it check it out here.
And this 1:30-minute Buzzy Bees trailer will make you want to play right away!
Without bees, humans would struggle to survive. According to Dave Goulson, Biology Professor at the University of Sussex, without bees, billions would starve. Most flowering plants depend on animal pollination. Bees contribute to the survival of our ecosystem and pollinate the foods we love to eat, like tomatoes, apples, almonds, strawberries, cherries, peppers, coffee, chocolate and much more.
In the bigger picture of a perfect world, famine could be avoided globally, and hunger eliminated in developing countries, if more people kept bees and planted seeds for food crops.
Global bee populations are in decline, although in New Zealand, rated seventh in the world for bee population growth over a decade, the opposite is true. Kiwis invest a lot of time and effort in monitoring and treating honeybees, which are some of the world’s smallest livestock. Since Varroa destructor mite arrived in New Zealand in 2000, local honeybees need human assistance for survival, and they receive it for the most part, because they are valued.
Let's take note of how New Zealand tends to their bees with love and gratitude. Bees contribute so much to us, and we take so much from them. It's time to restore balance. For the sake of bees and humanity.
To those who observe it, we wish you a meaningful Memorial Day weekend.