Thanks to a comment left on my blog, I found out about a fun walking project being carried out by activist and gardener Meg Beresford, called ‘Let’s Make a Beeline’.
Meg is walking for 8 days between Aug 30th until Sept 6th – from Edinburgh Botanical Gardens to her home in Wiston Lodge, Scotland – to raise money for a bee-themed weekend gathering there. Each day she is covering 10 kilometres (6.2 miles), as bee expert Dave Goulson has found that a bumblebee can travel up to 10 kilometres to make its way home. At the gathering she plans to “bring together internationally renowned authors, speakers and academics to engage in bee conversation”, with bee themed workshops and music.
You can follow Meg’s adventures via her blog at makeabeeline.org, which she is updating daily. Along her route she is visiting gardens and other bee friendly projects to connect with other like minded folk. I am enjoying reading about her travels and seeing the beautiful scenery of Scotland. She also has a donations page.
It cheers me up to know that other people are out there that care about nature, in a week when I’ve heard of depressing developments both locally and globally: in Ealing some of our treasured local allotments will be lost to a new housing project, while in South Carolina millions of bees have been killed by spraying, partly because inadequate prior warnings were given to beekeepers.
Adventuresinbeeland's Blog 
Reblogged this on paul scribbles and commented:
A wonderful share from Emily at Adventures in Beeland. Thank You for your support.
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Thanks for the blog Emily and for your wonderful support.
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You’re welcome Paul.
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What a great project, thanks for sharing!
Yes, the disaster in South Carolina was quite sad. A lot of U.S. beekeepers have been worrying about this as with all the hype over Zeka local communities were bound to get a little overzealous. There was lack of warning, and also the manufacturer recommended spraying within two hours of sunrise or two hours of sunset. I’m not sure why they’d think just after sunrise was a good idea. That’s what happened and of course all the bees were out in force. So the truly sad part is that the local government was trying to be good by spraying according to the label instructions.
Keep your bees safe!
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Grrr. The manufacturer should update their labels – within two hours of sunset would be much better, though of course some beneficial insects would still be killed. I hate all this spraying.
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My son sent me this link on whats app this morning http://u.pw/2cauwDG That may add to what this person Meg is trying to achieve if these two could do something extraordinary together. Thank you for your informative writing and I’m very sorry to hear about the loss of your allotments… Is there no alternative building site that can be offered if enough people wanted to save the other site. How about getting Gardner’s World tv personalities on your side that would scare away the “development monsters” in the past they have covered loss of “brownhills” if that is the right term. Good Luck
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Thanks for the link. 50,000 bees! And he paints them in such beautiful detail. I hope he doesn’t get bored of painting bees!
Re the allotments, it’s tricky as a housing trust owns the land. They want to build social housing for elderly people on it. Which is a worthy project, I just wish they could build somewhere else – but of course there is very little spare land in London. The allotments are so beautiful and much treasured by the allotment holders, it’s so sad to think of their peacefulness being shattered.
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I so appreciate your blog to keep me up to date with so much that I would miss otherwise. Amelia
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Thanks Amelia. And I rely on your blog for a dose of joy every so often 🙂
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Thanks for alerting us to these issues. Here is a full report on the bee losses from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/04/zika-mosquito-neurotoxin-kills-bees-livelihoods-beekeepers
In the blog post you cite there are some interesting comments about the potential effects of Naled on humans; also on the relative lack of effects of neonics on honeybees.
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Thanks for the link Philip. From what I’ve read studies have been finding that neonics have more of a detrimental effect on bumblebees and solitary bees.
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Yes, that’s my understanding as well.
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Thank you for some fascinating links Emily. I hadn’t heard about the tragedy in South Carolina, the scale of it is absolutely shocking. It is about time we devised and implemented global ‘Environmental Crime’ laws similar to ‘War Crimes’ to make governments or individuals liable for the destruction or harm caused to other beings on this planet as a result of their actions. Sad about the loss of your allotments too. If it was thought through properly, the Housing Association could perhaps decrease the footprint of buildings slightly, or reposition them so people could continue to garden the areas around them. I’m sure most older people would rather look out of their windows and see people they could interact with than a few sterile rose beds, especially if they got a share of the veggies!
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Agree with you, those who harm the environment should be made to pay. Too often there are no repercussions. There is a lot of support from local politicians to save the allotments and the allotment holders will do their best to put up a fight.
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