Honeybee Heroes in a

honeybee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...

sanctuary and

beekeeper A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists (both from the Latin '' apis'', bee; cf. apiary). The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees i ...

education non-profit organisation founded in 2020 by Chris Oosthuizen in the

Overberg __NOTOC__ Overberg is a region in South Africa to the east of Cape Town beyond the Hottentots-Holland mountains. It lies along the Western Cape Province's south coast between the Cape Peninsula and the region known as the Garden Route in the e ...

region of South Africa. Honeybee Heroes seeks to increase population numbers of the

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Capensis honeybee subspecies (

Apis mellifera capensis The Cape honey bee or Cape bee (''Apis mellifera capensis'') is a southern South African subspecies of the western honey bee. They play a major role in South African agriculture and the economy of the Western Cape by pollinating crops and produc ...

), which is increasingly at risk due to a number of factors including

monocropping In agriculture, monocropping is the practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land. Maize, soybeans, and wheat are three common crops often monocropped. Monocropping is also referred to as continuous cropping, as in "continuous c ...

pesticide Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampri ...

use, beekeeper malpractice,

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

, and

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. Secondary activities of the organisation include educating South African consumers on honey

adulteration An adulterant is caused by the act of adulteration, a practice of secretly mixing a substance with another. Typical substances that are adulterated include but are not limited to food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, fuel, or other chemicals, that ...

and encouraging them to purchase from local producers. Working with local farmers to create more environmentally friendly cultivation techniques, including the planting of pollinator-friendly

cover crop In agriculture, cover crops are plants that are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife i ...

s, and other general honeybee welfare advocacy activities. Through Honeybee Heroes' Adopt-a-Hive program, individuals in South Africa or overseas, sponsor beehives, which are then placed on the Honeybee Heroes farm in Stanford Valley (

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

, South Africa) or on nearby farms and private reserves. Sponsored hives are cared for by the Honeybee Heroes expert apiarists, who extract honey from the hives and sell locally to help support the sanctuary project. Honeybee Heroes offers free and paid monthly beekeeping courses for interested beginners, in which visitors are trained in safety,

hive management Hive management in beekeeping refers to intervention techniques that a beekeeper may perform to ensure hive survival and to maximize hive production. Hive management techniques vary widely depending on the objectives. For honey production The dep ...

, and honey extraction. The organisation also runs a community micro-apiary programme, in which low-income South Africans, primarily women, are trained to care for hives on land donated by private land owners or reserves and receive a portion of the profits from the honey produced to uplift themselves and their families. Honeybee Heroes has partnerships with several local and international organisations, including a

consumer education Consumer education is the preparation of an individual to be capable of making informed decisions when it comes to purchasing products in a consumer culture. It generally covers various consumer goods and services, prices, what the consumer can e ...

program with South Africa's leading health and wellness retailer Wellness Warehouse, a hive adoption partnership with Mantis Collection's nonprofit arm Community Conservation Fund Africa, apiary hosting partnerships with local small businesses Lomond Wine Estate and Stonehouse Cheese Estate, and a label design project with local South African visual artists including Lionel Smit, Riaan Van Zyl, and Janko de Beer. The Honeybee Heroes sanctuary has over 700 honeybee hives.

References

{{reflist 2020 establishments in South Africa Beekeeping organizations Environmental organisations based in South Africa Animal welfare organisations based in South Africa Non-profit organisations based in South Africa