Wiley’s Brisbane office today welcomes 400,000 new ‘workers’ and residents on their rooftop in their latest project. The workers, eight colonies of honey bees, are set to produce over 360kg of honey each year. Wiley, who design and build facilities, are collaborating with Bee One Third to produce a fantastic environment for the bees to create their honey.
“This project is Wiley’s contribution to a thriving bee population which supports our food industry, and the bonus is plenty of fresh honey to share. One of the great things we can learn from bees is that we all win if we cooperate. The bees will enjoy our insect friendly herb garden and collect nectar and pollen from the local Woolloongabba blooms,” said Wiley managing director, Tom Wiley.
Globally, bees contribute directly to one in every three plates of food that we eat, meaning, one third of our global food system is wholly reliant on bee pollination.
On a larger scale, bees contribute to over 97 per cent of the global food production – from seed manufacture, all the way through to the growing of vegetables, nuts and fruits.
Bees and other insect pollinators play a vital role in dictating whether farmers receive a yielded crop at the end of the season, are relied upon by consumers, supermarkets, farmers of all foods (including oils, meat, seeds, fruits and vegetables) and pollinate food crops worth between AU$4-6 billion per year to the Australian economy.
“It’s amazing to collaborate with forward focussed companies like Wiley who understand the intricacies of the production cycle and what it takes to truly contribute back to their environment. We really look forward to comparing our Woolloongabba honey to our other harvests around Brisbane,” Jack Stone from Bee One Third.
Stones main focus is to work with local beekeepers, and the surrounding community, to increase the local bee population and create greater social awareness about the importance of insect pollinators for our food future.
“Our primary focus of what we want to achieve is to increase pollination rates with healthy, strong bee hives and create effective and efficient systems of changes for the neighbourhood. It’s a true contribution to the area as the bees fly within 5km of their hive – they will be visiting East Brisbane, Stones Corner, Buranda and surrounding suburbs too,” said Stone.
The honey the bees collect from around at Wiley will be shared with clients, family and friends. Anything left over will be donated to one of the many charities Wiley collaborates with locally.
There are a lot of sweet lessons to learn from keeping bees. These lessons are especially relatable in the food industry. Bees work together for a collective purpose and achieve the extraordinary. We need to help bees on their mission to ensure our food production well into the future.
Image: Rachael Hedges, Wiley Marketing Manager with Jack Stone from Bee One Third.