Bees? You must be wondering why we are talking about bees in this edition of RAP’t? Bees are a keystone species because they play a vital role in preserving our biodiversity and ecosystem in the world. But what does that all mean? Well, bees are responsible for 80% of all pollination worldwide and for providing us with a third of our food supply. Without the bees, it would be very hard to have any fruit like apples, mangoes, strawberries, peaches, nuts etc…the list is very long. So, bees are very important for sustaining human life on Earth as we need those foods on a daily basis!
But the sad part is that bees are endangered. Due to the rapid pace of urban development and increase in construction, they are losing their natural habitat. Concomitant with the increased use of pesticides for agriculture purposes, more bees are dying every year. And finally, bees are more suited to colder weather and are vulnerable to heat waves, so climate change is also a big threat to them. In Australia alone, we have already lost 100,000 commercial beehives (20% of the bee population) between 2006-2016. So what can COLAS and you do to help the bees and our biodiversity?
As part of our commitment to Biodiversity and Corporate Social Responsibility, the COLAS Australia Group have identified a project which would host beehives at some of our plants/depots. Not only would we be helping our planet in a very efficient way, but we would be able to harvest our own honey. Yes, we can have “COLAS Honey (production 2022)” and offer it as a gift to out employees of our clients!
To give you an idea, in France, in the past 10 years, a beehive was built in each of our quarries to reintroduce bees and help the local biodiversity. In Australia SAMI in Western Australia has already implemented a beehive in their new Kwinana bitumen terminal alongside different fruits trees (citrus, passion fruit, etc) and they do harvest their own honey.
There are different options to implement a beehive in our plants: we can either lease, own or host a beehive. Before installing a beehive, a beekeeper will come to do an on-site assessment to determine if the building is suitable to host bees and see if it is safe for the bees as well as the people/neighbours on the site.