The Bee Cause

This campaign launched in 2012 and we jumped in with all feet! Dressing up as giant bees and informing the public about the plight of bees. During the summer we held a Bee Activity Week in an empty shop in the Park Avenue shopping centre where over 500 people in North Tyneside (and from further afield) signed our Bee Cause campaign cards asking Mr Cameron to please sign up to a National Bee Action Plan for all bees (see our photos). We gave out information in the borough which encouraged everyone to see that bees are more than just honey. Many families learned of the different types of British Bees: honey bees, bumble bees and solitary bees and how they are all important in the pollination of over 78% of our most important food crops; without them our food bills would increase by 76%. Whitley Bay Cooperative donated the fruits and foods bees pollinate so we could give you a taste of what you would be missing without bees, we also placed Pollinated by Bees stickers on the food labels on their shelves. Beekeeper Ian Wallace and his bees joined us and many children who had taken part in learning about how Bees dance, watched the bees perform their waggle dance, who could spot the Queen? We informed children of the food cycle and created over 300 bee hotels in North Tyneside and Northumberland during our visits to local schools and the library.