World Bee Day

Almost every day it’s international ‘something’ day. You may not know it, but already in just the past month it has been ‘International Hummus Day’, ‘World Naked Gardening Day’ and ‘World Penguin Day’.

So what is the purpose of such days? Well, to celebrate and/or raise awareness…of hummus. And naked gardening. And penguins. But in short, it’s all about the dissemination of information. And as you can imagine, as a library service we’re all for that.

Every one of these days is an opportunity to learn a little something about a topic, and for one day give it a prominence it wouldn’t ordinarily receive. I mean, did you know that:

• There’s a ‘Hummus! The movie’?
• World Naked Gardening Day has been around since 2005 and has its own hashtag?*
• There are 17 species of penguins, and all their natural habitats are in the Southern hemisphere?

Anyway, as I say, we’re all for the spreading of knowledge and wonder – it’s a core principle of any library. But we can’t highlight every single one of these days (there are over 1,500!). But we can briefly mention one that we have a connection with. Albeit a tenuous connection…

Today (20^th May) is World Bee Day! And as our mascot is Billy Bee (taken from the shortened nickname for the Bill Bryson Library which we have chosen to embrace), we feel that’s reason enough to talk about it.

Here are a couple of stark, bee-based facts:

• A third of the world’s food production depends on bees
• Bees have become increasingly endangered of late, with nearly 10% of bee species facing extinction

However, we can help to preserve bees by:

• Planting nectar-bearing flowers for decorative purposes in gardens
• Buying honey and other hive products from your nearest local beekeeper
• Raising awareness among children on the importance of bees
• Preserving old meadows
• Cut grass on meadows only after the nectar-bearing plants have finished blooming

Find out more at https://www.worldbeeday.org/en/ and of course find more information and resources on bees by searching Discover

We’ve also got lots on penguins. Not so sure about naked gardening, however…

* – #WorldNakedGardeningDay or #WNGD if you’re interested, but you’ll have to wait until the first Saturday in May 2022 to get involved…