In our new series ‘Live Beautifully with Clarins‘, we spotlight the Irish business owners, creators or activists who are making a difference. Here, we chat to Paul Handrick of The Bee Sanctuary of Ireland
The Bee Sanctuary of Ireland is the only dedicated native wild bee sanctuary on the planet. How did it come to be? What sparked this passion?
We moved to a small farm near Coolafancy in County Wicklow in 2012 and immediately set about protecting and enhancing the large nature-rich areas which were already present. Shortly afterwards we, became the only Certified Vegan Organic land in Ireland. In 2017 we took the decision to go ‘all in’ and dedicate everything to saving endangered Native Wild Bees, turning this 55 acre family farm (the size of 31 football pitches) into the world’s first Native Wild Bee Sanctuary – The Bee Sanctuary of Ireland.
Our passion for bees was sparked by a realisation of how important these wonderful docile busy creatures are and the fragile position they now find themselves in due to human activity. We equally realised that because of the way we cared for nature here that bees were thriving so this story needed to be told to inspire others to do likewise. We all need to do better to save bees. And we can be.
What kind of work is involved in your mission to save our native wild bees?
Our work is a combination of on-the-ground practical action on the Sanctuary, outreach into communities and digital advocacy to educate and inspire across the globe. We inspire action by taking action. Our goal is to get people to love bees! To reach people globally as quickly as possible with our simple, honest message and to inspire people and businesses across the planet to use their often unrealised potential and resources to implement genuine solutions to help bees and nature.
The authentic collaboration between Clarins and The Bee Sanctuary of Ireland, both family-run, nature-based enterprises, sets a blueprint for what we can achieve by working together for bees and nature and has seen the good people we know as Team Clarins helping both on the ground here at the sanctuary and ensuring that we reach a broader audience with our vital message.
What is the most important message for you to communicate as part of this advocacy work? What exactly can people do, day to day, to help wild bees?
Not all bees are honey bees. Honey bees are not endangered, bumblebees and solitary bees are. Ireland has over 100 species of bee which include 21 Bumblebees (the big furry ones), 81 Solitary bees (small, gentle and often unnoticed), and one Honeybee. One third of our native wild bees are endangered. Keeping a hive of honeybees in your garden or business does nothing to help bumblebees and solitary bees and in fact can be part of the problem for numerous reasons including competition for food. One hive of honeybees will make in excess of 10,000,000 flower visits a day – that’s a lot of flowers isn’t it? Which brings us nicely on to the best way to help bees – provide food for bees!
Bees are a vegan evolution of wasps and have been buzzing about this wonderful planet for about 130 million years (they flew amongst dinosaurs – ponder that!). They sustain themselves by foraging for nectar and pollen on flowers and the best flowers for them are the flowers that they have evolved with – native wildflowers. So welcome and encourage native wildflowers in your patch (which include dandelions and thistles). These wildflowers (not weeds!) and bees thrive best in wild natural chemical-free habitat. Embrace this in your garden. Don’t cut all of your grass at the same time always leaving areas of long grass and flowering clover, respect dandelions, celebrate wildflowers and never use chemical sprays.
“Once you go wild you won’t go back. Be gentle and considerate of other creatures that live in your garden. Be brave. Be informed. Be Bee People!“
