Climate Action Slovakia Project #23773

Help save bees and beekeeping in Slovakia

by Nadacia Pontis/Pontis Foundation

Project Report | Oct 26, 2016
It has been a BEEsy season

By Sona Keresztesova | Program Leader

Children in beekeepers suits had great fun

Since the end of April, the doors of our educational apiary were open to anyone who wanted to learn more about honey bees. Honey bees are an important and irreplaceable part of our food chain. Did you know that honey bees are responsible for every third bite of food we eat? Also, more than 80% of plants are directly dependent on pollination that is done mainly by honey bees. Thus, a major decrease of insect pollinators might have dramatic influence on our biodiversity and related economic activities. Without a doubt, honeybees are very important for us. That is the main message we want to give to the visitors of our educational center.

This year, we hosted many field trips for children; through high school, but mostly between the ages of 6 – 14. Some of the children were quite scared at the beginning and they didn’t know what to expect. But, after putting on safe beekeeper suits they had great fun. They had even more fun when we took them to see a close-up look of the life of a honey bee colony. Children forgot about their fears and were fascinated by the number and diligence of these small creatures. We also gave many honey tastings to our young visitors, which is usually the most interesting part for the kids in our program. This year, we had tried something new in our method of education and it seems to be working really well for both sides of the educational process. We included games, team work and sport activities in teaching children. We had a lot of fun and the children didn’t even notice how much they learned about the life of honey bees, about pollination and other useful insects during the different games.

Also new this year to our educational apiary is the expansion of our program from honeybees to a chicken coop, Indian runner ducks and a few sheep. Are you wondering how all of these useful animals relates to honeybees? So did the children from the M.R. Štefánik elementary school in Lucenec. Through a series of regular meetings, we introduced them to life on a farm. They had a wonderful chance to learn something new and useful by participating in building on the farm and in taking care of the landscape in an environmentally friendly way. In addition, we took them to the forest, meadows and pastures so they could see what happens to the landscape when it is not managed properly. They learned what animals can help in landscape protection and, in doing so, providing diverse food sources for bees. Together, we created colorful flower beds for attracting pollinators and did some useful gardening.

During the summer we hosted a few summer camps with children from the whole country. In addition, we had visitors from further destinations like Nigeria, Korea, Ecuador, France and India. Almost all of our weekends during the seasons were packed with beekeeping courses for beginners. It was really nice to see how many people care and are willing to help honey bees. We had almost 60 volunteers that helped us prepare the space for our most hoped for and most difficult project so far – building a small environmental center. Literally, from the beginning of this season we were dealing with obtaining different kinds of permissions and plans for the building itself. At the end of the month, we will finally start with constructing. The small building will be a big help. It will have sheltered space for lectures and workshops in any weather so we don’t have to cancel any of our scheduled programs because of rain. This is a huge step for us and will help us move forward to improve our program for our visitors.

While the construction of the center is in the beginning stage, our beekeeping season at apiary is finished for this year. We continue to work with children at the elementary school in Lucenec in our beekeeping class that is running its third year already. Each year we have more and more students; which is a good sign for us. So far, it has been a busy season. Though it isn’t even finished, we are looking forward to next season; when we will operate in our new environmental and educational center. If you like our project, please support us.

Honey tasting is preferred activity :)

Kids learned a lot about pollinators

Pupils from M.R. Stefanik school

Introduction to life on farm

Together we created colorful color beds

We had visitors even from Nigeria, India or Korea

Building a small enviromental center

Beekeping class is running for the 3rd year now

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Aug 2, 2016
When a passion becomes a job

By Sona Keresztesova | Project Leader

Since 2013 we have been among the lucky ones whose hobby and passion become their job.

Our main activity consists indeed in connecting bees, people and education.

Although beekeeping in our a family is a tradition that started in 1945, it was not always clear that we will always be able to carry on this passion forever. The story of our non-governmental organization kRaj is in fact fascinating.

One of its founders - David - has grown up with bees. He had helped and learnt about beekeeping since his early childhood, because with up to 100 beehives, every helping hand was needed. But instead of helping at the apiary he preferred hanging out with friends and playing, like most kids his age. That is why for quite a long time he saw beekeeping as a necessity and bees as stinging insects, rather than as an interesting hobby and a useful insect. Everything changed when David´s father grew old. Due to his lack of force, he had to quit beekeeping. So David came to the decision to continue the beekeeping tradition. Indeed, as he became older, he started to appreciate this activity more and more.

First he decided to help his farther with selling honey. So we created a label and sold the honey directly to customers at different art and craft festivals. This is when we realized that knowledge about honey and bees among the general public is pretty low. We often got questions about how bees made honey and how they live. Sometimes we even experienced big mistakes from people who would for instance think that the bumblebee is the male of the honey bee, or that our honey comes from the supermarket. We then had the feeling that we needed to tell the people how important bees are for our daily lives.

They had to realize that almost 90% of the food we eat is pollinated by insects and that every third bite is pollinated directly by honey bees.

So in 2013 our project “Vcelí kRaj” (Bee landscape/Bee paradise) came to life. We established an educational apiary in the middle of Slovakia that since its opening has become quite popular and was visited by almost 2500 visitors.

A lot of schools are coming to our apiary. Children receive beekeeping suits and can experience the job of a beekeeper. We want them to become bee-friendly and to overcome their fear of bees. They receive important information about pollination and useful insects, always by playing and in a friendly environment. We also teach them how to help bees by creating bee-friendly environments and how bees contribute to our biodiversity.

Our last message is very important for the future of beekeeping. In addition to produce a varied natural environment and honey, bees are also highly profitable. Indeed, we also work with marginalized communities (for instance people with mental or physical handicap, Roma people or long-term unemployed people.) These communities where taught how to keep bees, and together we established 22 new apiaries. This is a good way for these people to earn some little money and get some honey for their families. We also taught them how to process other bee products like bee wax or propolis into unique handcrafted gift products so they can sell them and earn some little extra too. We believe bees are important for our environment, biodiversity, nutrition and also a good source of social entrepreneurship.

They are our irreplaceable helpers. BEES ARE THE BE(E)ST!

That’s why we want to build the first environmental center focused on bees and pollination in Slovakia. We have to promote this feeling towards more and more people!

Thanks to your donations, we are able to create a display apiary with bee friendly gardens where people can learn everything from the fascinating life of pollinators, and get useful hints how to help and protect them. We are very ambitious about our actions, and that is why we need even more help!

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Jun 3, 2016
Bee-related Restaurant Day - 2016 Edition

By Laura Verlhac | Project Leader

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