Ceres Organics, who recently took home the Restorative Impact award at this year’s 2016 Sustainable Business Awards, have now partnered with BeezThingz to help bring back bees to the city.
Two honey producing hives and four pollination hives have been installed at the Ceres Organics Mt Wellington premise, each hosting 20,000-60,000 bees and providing around 50 kilos of honey per year.
Ceres Organics and several other like-minded businesses, including 13 Auckland schools, the Langham Hotel, Lot 23 café and the Auckland TVNZ building are seeking to resurrect the issue of bees being pushed out of urbanised cities, by working with BeezThingz on the City Bee Initiative. It’s hoped Auckland can become the most bee-friendly city in the world.
With almost two decades worth of experience, BeezThingz are New Zealand’s largest network of urban beehives and beekeepers. They provide superior knowledge and experience to maintain happy, healthy bee colonies around the city.
Ceres Organics’ bee project manager, Dominic Leverton, is excited to be a part of the wider initiative to return bees into urban environments.
“The honey is harvested twice a year, making sure the bees have enough to help them through the winter. We get to keep all of the honey harvested from the hives and will be providing jars of honey for our staff to enjoy,” says Leverton.
BeezThingz managing director, Julian McCurdy says: “Besides the delicious fresh honey, another benefit to those hosting the beehives is increased pollination. If they have any fruit trees or a garden, plants, flowers, as soon as you put the beehives in the flowers and plants respond to the added pollination.”
“The plant knows when there are insects around to pollinate so it produces more flowers. People find that their fruit trees all of sudden flourish when there are bees around and the whole garden comes to life,” says McCurdy.
For more see ceresorganics.co.nz and beezthingz.co.nz
