Do you have too much space in your backyard? Is your garden looking gloomy and dull? Do you wish you could do something good for the environment and move to a slightly more local lifestyle? Are you worried about how much that is all going to cost? Keep reading because we have an innovative new product that promises to revolutionise your environmental conscience.
Sorry, got a little TV salesperson there. We need to turn off the day time TV shows while we write our blogs. As cringy as that was, however, it is true, just without the monotone yelling man saying it over the TV.
If only crushed rock gardens actually did look like their Japanese counterparts.
Many people are indeed looking to try and help the environment and to make things a little better in the corner of the world in which they live. So many new houses are finished off with gravel or crushed rock to keep them "Low Maintenance." This has lead to many of us having drab, tedious, lifeless utopian back and front yards that look less like a family home and more like the landscape becoming of the matrix. Agent Smith would be proud of our lifeless neighbourhoods.
Some have tried their best to clean up their backyards and bring back a bit of life. For example, when my wife and I got married and moved into our current home (which is a house we rent from her uncle), we found that the previous tenants had destroyed whatever landscaping there was, and killed whatever life there was in the small garden. Over the years we have been living in that house, we have slowly restored the garden. We had to strip back a layer of soil in the yard because it was contaminated with motorbike oil and nothing would grow in it. We bought plants at the local nursery when they would come on special and slowly but inevitably brought the garden back to life.
It was hard work, and it was not cheap.
Now I know that some are probably reading this and thinking to themselves, "Why would you spend money cleaning and re-establishing someone else's back yard? That's money thrown away!" We have a response to that.
A little bit of effort spent on the garden goes a long way.
I am tired of hearing that line of reasoning. To us, it's motivated by an attitude of my money is more important than the greater good. We, for our part, don't understand why people can live in a house that has a backyard filled with crushed rock, mud or garbage just because it's owned by someone else. We mean, if you don't care about the garden, why not live in an apartment, and let the council maintain the parks across the street.
See, whether you own a property or you rent, that place is still your home. That is where your family is, where you go at the end of a bad day at work. It's your safe, peaceful place, where your kids and pets live, grow and create memories. How could anyone who loves their family and friends, build or rent a home and want to create happy memories with the backdrop of the matrix in the backyard?
Do you see what we are trying to say? It's our home. We want it to look and feel good. We want to have pride in it, even if we one day have to leave it behind because we are in it today!
What to do?
We are not calling for everyone to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars redoing their gardens just because we did. What we are trying to do is encourage our community to rethink how they view and feel about their immediate environment: the back and front garden.
That is where our Bee Host program comes into play.
The Hives will bring a new lease of life to your garden.
We have written about this to some extent and referenced the program in other blogs, but now we can explain exactly how it works.
The goal behind the Bee Host Program is to enable our community to take a small action to help their immediate environment, educate them about the importance of our bees and to improve the number and health of our bees. With this in mind, we offer the opportunity to those who are willing, to host a beehive on their property, whether they rent or own the property.
Firstly, a willing potential Bee Host registers with us by emailing info@urbanbeeprojectaustralia.com and requesting to be part of the program. We review their application, and if the proposed property is in a desirable location, we conduct a visit to confirm an appropriate space for the hive to sit.
If the location and property are appropriate, then the Bee Host will be approved to host a hive on their property. Once a beehive is ready, we move the colony to the location during the night so as not to disturb the bees more than necessary. Once they are settled in, it usually takes a season for us to build up the strength of the hive and to be comfortable in taking honey if there is any.
During this entire time, the Bee Host does nothing but provide access to our Beekeepers when needed. Urban Bee Project Australia provides the hives and conducts all the maintenance of the colony. The Bee Host offers the space. In return, the Bee Host get 10% of the honey harvested from the hive to keep for themselves and to share with their friends.
Imagine that! If you sign up, you could soon have your very own honey, made in your backyard, on your toast for breakfast. And you can take it from us; no honey tastes better than honey from your garden.
Naturally, the hives will remain the property of Urban Bee Project Australia, and Bee Host's will need to understand that they can not interfere with the colony nor will they own it. For those who are looking to get into Beekeeping themselves, however, we offer the program with training packages, where we provide the hive, and through a traineeship, we teach you how to care for them correctly by yourself. Once you are confident in your abilities and are 100% certain you would like to commit to Beekeeping, the option of purchasing the current hive on the block is made available, or we can help you buy a starter hive, that you can grow and care for from scratch.
So in short, the hives are free, are cared for, and you get a bit of honey. If you are interested in finding out more, go check out or projects page and send us an email, letting us know you would like to know more.
But how does this help the environment? I mean that was the whole premise of the start of this blog.
You’ll notice things in your yard you’ve never noticed before.
It is a well-known fact that bees are a significant contributor to pollination work. When there is extra pollination, there are more plant seeds. More plant seeds mean more naturally grown free plants, which means a better backyard at a lower price. It also means an increase in biodiversity.
Since hosting colonies, many of our hosts have reported an increase in the sightings of birds that they haven't seen before. So I guess what we are trying to say is, bees are good for your garden.
And if you're worried about your garden and if it's good enough to host bees, we offer free advise on how to create low maintenance, affordable and healthy bee-friendly gardens. We might even pass on the odd plant here and there.
So don't bee afraid of the bees and doing something good for the environment. Bee curious and feel free to ask us about our Bee Host program and if its right for you. And if it's not, support us anyway by getting your hands on our incredible local honey and supporting our efforts. And remember to get your friends on board and get them to like and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Until our next blog, make friends with a bee, share a cola with it. Everyone likes cola.