European Honey Breakfast – 15 November 2019
This year, the Slovenian Beekeepers’ Association marks the thirteenth anniversary of its honey breakfast initiative in Slovenia, which involves organized visits of children in schools. This year, on the third Friday in November or, to be precise, on 15 November 2019, the Slovenian beekeepers will traditionally participate in a honey breakfast in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools. As the campaign has been very well received by the public since its inception, the beekeepers have launched the initiative to overhaul it into a traditional Slovenian breakfast, which was adopted on the national level in 2011. Together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food and the Slovenian members of the European Parliament, we wanted the idea of a honey breakfast to evolve into a European honey breakfast. Despite the fact that the initiative failed to win the majority of signatures from MEPs in Brussels in 2016 at the declarative level, the beekeeping organizations, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food as well as several Slovenian embassies abroad continue to strive.to spread this initiative with the aim of raising public awareness of the importance of bees and other pollinators, bee products, healthy lifestyle and the importance of locally grown food.
In 2014, the idea of organizing a European honey breakfast was put forward. In 2015, we received the initial responses from the beekeeping organizations that participated in this project. European honey breakfast activities have been carried out to varying extents in different countries around the world, including Australia, Brazil, USA, Japan, France, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Romania, Croatia, Slovakia, Bosnia, Montenegro, etc. We believe that this trend of growing interest will increase from year to year and that a successful example of good practice will spread from Slovenia into a European and global movement.
This year again, we have prepared a plan of activities for children. Children, teachers, beekeepers, mayors of municipalities, civil servants and other public figures have breakfast together eating bread with honey, drinking tea sweetened with honey, talk with children about bees and beekeeping, create beekeeping-related products, etc. Like in previous years, we invited schools to assemble the largest choir and to prepare, record and publish shows about bees and pollinators on the Slovenian Beekeepers’ Association’s YouTube channel.
Follow the link https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnKLDuOFXYZE2NBKum43ffg?spfreload=5 to take a look at their videos.
Schools were invited to send us a plan for their honey gardens in the next year together with a brief description of the honey plants that were planted and photos taken during the flowering period. The most beautiful honey garden will be selected and rewarded.
Children are also invited to create group carnival masks on the topic of bees and other pollinators with the help of their mentors and to attend the 2020 “Bee Carnival” in Bled.
Bees are part of our lives and are, as we say, an indicator of a clean environment. To children, they are a symbol of diligence, thriftiness and care for others, while adults admire their efficiency, social order and economy.
Click the link below to see a video on how the world would look like without bees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6BhwaLcxK4. We invite you to join the European Honey Breakfast 2019.
