Don´t stop till you drop

Giraffe Hero Hendrik HaersTodays podcast is taken our look to a green desert– meaning an area without diversified culture – meaning no food for insects to survive. Hendrik Haers, my guest today, is living in the centre of a village built in such a green desert – where there’s hardly any ground left that the village autorities don’t sell for building. Therefore Henrik decided to gather all his power to plant as much trees as possible and create an awareness. He’s also sharing his story of how he learned to become a classic beekeeper and how he change from traditional to natural beekeeping. After that, the number of beehives increased surprisingly “without doing anything”. **Keywords:**Climate changeBees. beekeeping, bee colonies Varroa mite: Varroa destructor is an external parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on the honey bees Apis cerana and Apis mellifera. The disease caused by the mites is called varroosis. The Varroa mite can reproduce only in a honey bee colony. It attaches to the body of the bee and weakens the bee by sucking fat bodies.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/breeders-toughen-bees-resist-deadly-miteshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehttps://wemakeit.com/projects/climate-adaptationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beehive#Bee_gumshttps://www.bienenjournal.de/imkerpraxis/fachberichte/imkern-in-klotzbeute-und-zeidelbaeumen/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_age#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Oxford%20English,age%20from%2055%20to%2065.https://dogtime.com/dog-health/general/19713-meet-bazz-the-canine-beekeeperhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Aa56jut7YThe ways we can solve that are techniques of agroforestry and include nature in the farming process. Something you as an individual are not able to change. But together with a working group they’re trying to convince people to change this, to plant more trees, to plant more flowers.“Yes we can” was an organization called the “moss group”, a group planting forests. Through this group I got active as a guerrilla gardener.Our big garden in the center of Bassevelde is a kind of oasis within the green desert – so our goal is to increase our garden to the surroundings and increase the amount of food.The problem is bees fly up to three km so you have to create an awareness with the people of the village – that they help to provide more food. We try also to create awareness. Then also to convince people to plant trees in their gardens. So people can help if they only plant one tree in their garden.There’s an educational component to it also. We try to teach children, go to schools and create a conscience, how important nature is and that a bee is not something dangerous that stings you but something important for everyone. Usually children from inside don’t have this fear – it’s because we tell them so.Big beehive on the tree – we invite the bees – difference to classic beekeepingEspecially in a green desert like this the idea is to leave the honey to them – to create a home for them, because there’s not enough for them. Bees like to live in hollow trees -but there are none anymore…So idea of the hängekorb is to invite the bee swarms. The only thing we do is to see if there’s honey to know if we have to feed them – otherwise they would die. But we don’t treat them again deseases nothing – and they manage to survive these – as long as we feed them, because there’s not enough plants.How comes the fascination with bees?First learned about the beekeeping and all the treatment and started to have beehives. Then got a bit disappointed but then learned about natural beehives and realized there is a way not to have so much loss and that it works without treating so then I liked it.Now I have too many hives for this green desert. So I have to think about if I should stop feeding them so by natural selection the ones who are more resilient to an area with less food will survive.What is your hope, what do you want to achieve if this campaign goes through?Overall awareness. By putting the hives, showing the people how it works. That’s what we want to use the money for – to increase the awareness inside the village counselors and also to fight against vandalism. Then the politics argue well, look, they don’t want trees, they take them away. We have to ask the people.The one thing I would change immediately if I could is reorganize the green department who’s there to supposingly organize the green areas etc. – and also invest in this green areas – not only do spots for building, but really create green spots and so on. As a village council buy all the green spots and plant things there.Message to the crowd: plant plant plantGuerrilla gardeners tend to work wherever a natural presence is needed. Sometimes they work outside of the legal system. Guerrilla gardening is a global ecological movement that focusses on caring for neglected public space. Welcome to Stick your Neck Out! The Podcast ...