Proud milestone in helping save the bees
Hi guys,
Just Bee has been going for five and a half years now. It seems like an age since Andy and I hung up our accountancy hats and buzzed off to the world of start-up food and drink.
From the beginning, it was about creating healthy food and drink products with honey and helping to save the bees. The bees were always key - and with dad being a beekeeper, we were probably more aware than most about the struggles bees had been (and still are) facing.
Our first idea to help the bees was to donate a % of profits to a save the bees charity, but it seemed too detached, too far away - after all, most start up businesses don’t turn a profit for a few years anyway. We needed something more practical, a way to help right now. After a lot of head scratching and meeting Kieron from Sow The City, the lightbulb moment hit us. We would plant and give out FREE bee-friendly flower seeds to anyone that asked - it seemed perfect as one of the main problems for bees is shrinking natural habitat. Not only a way to help the bees, but a way to help others help the bees too.
The seeds started off pretty amateur, with my dear old granny packing little envelopes of seeds for us to send out. I think she enjoyed it, in fact she loved helping us (thanks gran!). And quite quickly granny couldn’t pack them quickly enough - people from all over the UK were requesting them, so we got friends and family roped in and eventually had to start ordering them from a professional seeds company! Pretty soon we were sending out thousands of seeds a month and over the years we have delivered seeds to individuals, schools, community groups, farms, politicians, celebs, businesses and even a few people organising weddings (as wedding favours).
Granny helping to pack seeds in summer 2015
And in return we’ve received hundreds of thank you letters, poems, bee song playlists, papier-mâché bees, knitted bees - you name it! (by the way, we have kept them all and they are due to go up on a massive wall in Just Bee HQ!!).
The reason I’m telling you this is that we have now planted or sent out over 5.5 million bee-friendly flower seeds- with the help of tens of thousands of people across the UK. I’m pretty sure that’s a a good few bees saved and i'd like to THANK EVERY ONE OF YOU that has helped to achieve this. I’m pretty sure the bees say thank you too!
Oh - and It’s not too late!! If you would like some seeds to plant and thinking it’s too late to plant this year, think again! We planted some of the seeds last July and got flowers by end of September - and most of them came back in the Spring too. If you want some free seeds, head over to our save the bees page and we’ll sort you out.
This project will continue. Let’s aim for 10 million flowers by end of 2021. Here’s to the flowers and the bees.
Just Bee Co-founder
🌱🌼🌸🌺🐝🍯😁 #savetbees #justbee
Any packets of seeds? I have lots of common land around me.
Thanks for helping our bees.
Hi, yes we are a UK company!
Just double checking ,you are a UK based company arent you?
Hello
I am a forest school leader & am very keen to promote bees at any opportunity!
I work with children aged 2-11 d would love some flower seeds please.
Love the photo of your granny packing the seeds….brilliant.
Many thanks
Emma
Hi, I was wondering if you still offering seeds?