Winnie-the-Pooh Wants to Save the Bees

Planting a bee-friendly tree beneath Warwick Castle. Via The Telegraph.

Last month, I shared a story from Cornell’s orchards, where apple blossoms were pollinated this year solely by local wild bee species rather than commercial honeybees. Funnily enough, the same day I posted that story, the science editor for The Telegraph wrote a piece concerning bees across the Atlantic, where the British Beekeepers Association has partnered with one of the original Winnie-the-Pooh illustrators to make a new story encouraging children to care for these productive insects. As Pooh tells Piglet in the new story when they realize there is a shortage of honey, “you can only be careful for so long before you run out altogether.” Sarah Knapton reports:

Beekeepers are also hoping to engage children by encouraging them to bake with local honey, become beekeepers, visit nearby apiaries and throw seed-bombs to help the spread of wildflowers.

New illustrations show AA Milne’s characters Christopher Robin, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore and Pooh making a vegetable patch in the Yorkshire Dales, building a bee box in the shadow of the Angel of the North in Gateshead, and planting a flowering tree in the shadow of Warwick Castle.

The friends are also pictured dropping bee-balls in Birmingham, painting in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire and visiting a honey show in Glastonbury.

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