More than just honey makers, bees are vital for pollinating agricultural crops. Without them, we wouldn’t have fresh fruit and veggies. End of story. Bees pollinate around 70 percent of the world’s crops, which is why the declining population of honey bees around the world in the last ten years is a major problem.
Although bees in Australia are healthy, their counterparts in North America and Europe are not as lucky. Bee colonies in such areas are stressed out and dying off from because they are subjected to pests and chemicals. As word has got out about the plight of the bee, not surprisingly there has been a surge in bee charities, people starting petitions to stop the use of pesticides that kill bees and celebrities jumping on board to raise money for bee research.
One of these celebrities is Morgan Freeman, who has decided to turn his 124 acre ranch in Mississippi into a sanctuary for bees. Freeman, 77, with the help of his gardener have planted lots of bee-friendly plants and is keeping hives in an effort to boost bee numbers. “There is a concerted effort to bring bees back onto the planet. We do not realize that they are the foundation, I think, of the growth of the planet, and vegetation…” Freeman says.
Freeman and his helpers feed the bees sugar and water and provide them with the plants they like to pollinate such as fruit trees, lavender, clover and magnolia trees. Although Freeman doesn’t personally manage the hives, he’s hired a professional beekeeper to keep tabs on them, he does visit them. By all accounts he doesn’t even wear a beekeeping hat as he says the bees know he isn’t trying to take their honey, he’s only feeding them.
“I’ve not ever used (the beekeeping hat) with my bees,” he says. “They haven’t (stung me) yet, because right now I’m not trying to harvest honey or anything, I’m just feeding them…I think they understand, ‘Hey, don’t bother this guy, he’s got sugar water here.’”
