Most of you have heard about the plight facing bees around the world. Bees help create one out of every three bites of food you put in your mouth, and yet colonies are collapsing everywhere.

But is there anything we can do about it?

A group 15 women in New York aren’t sitting back. The women -- most of whom have no experience in beekeeping -- have started a grassroots effort to gather funds to buy Hives (which cost about $1,000 a piece) and donate their time to keep them running.

The self-organized cooperative then gives the honey to their community to educate them on the importance of bees.

“It’s really about what can we do to help, to be involved in helping to mend this problem that we have,” Diane Gunder, one of the members of Hippy Hive HoneyBee Cooperative, told The Suffolk Times. “It is such a different feeling when you’re connected to your food supply.”

The cooperative plans to grow this year and offer education in local schools about the importance of bees. This is New Mutualism in action!

Here are a few tips from the Cooperative for how you can make a difference (from here):

• Grow native plants, which the bees will love.
• Don’t use insecticides containing neonicotinoid, a substance that confuses bees and makes it difficult for them to find their way back to the hive.
• Be respectful of the bees. If you don’t attempt to hurt them, they likely won’t have cause to sting you.
• Keeping bees is not cheap, so support your local beekeeper and buy local honey.

How are you helping bees?

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