The Top Five Reasons You Should Come to Hive to Table
1. Kids Since BGO’s founding in 2010, we have taught nearly 15,000 kids all about bees! This year we organized about 50 volunteers to teach over 500 kids (and their parents and teachers) about bees, honey, beekeeping, and habitat at the American Beekeeping Federation Conference in South Carolina. Here in the Rogue Valley we taught 566 kids about bees and conservation through the 23rd Annual Advocates for Women in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics (AWSUM) Symposium, Bee Week at the Farm at Southern Oregon University, Resident Outdoor School, and the Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District’s summer camp. The Bee Girl Squad volunteers our time to work with kids locally, and all across the country, and we need your support to make sure we can continue to organize and attend these educational events.
2. Soil Heath We began to create and develop a strategy to work more closely with farmers and ranchers in 2015 to provide better habitat for bees. This has grown into the “Regenerative Bee Pasture” project, a triple-pronged strategy to 1. develop land management techniques to get more bee-friendly flowers on the landscape through research, demonstration, and education; 2. to build soil health on five acres of pasture in Southern Oregon (expanding as we go!), and 3. to research the effects of increased floral nutrient density on bees. Some funds raised at Hive to Table will act as matching funds in a grant to support this project.
3. Education & Leadership Over the last decade BGO has been a leader in beekeeping through speaking and teaching in 20 states and 5 countries, running the BG Beekeeping Course, and facilitating the Next Generation Beekeepers Initiative. The highlight for my team was organizing the Western Apicultural Society conference in the summer of 2019. Beekeepers came from all around the world to Ashland, Oregon, to share their passion and knowledge for bees and beekeeping. Read more about the experience in my blog. I’ve now transitioned into the role of the Northwest Farmers Union President. In this new this new well-positioned volunteer position I will focus on agricultural policy that will support farmers to provide bee habitat, build soil health, and work toward mitigating climate change.
4. Food Every bite that you eat will be from a producer that BGO has a relationship with, and will be meticulously and beautifully prepared by local food advocate, and one of my dearest friends, Chef Kristen Lyon. Showing up to Hive to Table will not only support BGO, but our local, sustainable food system as well. Check out beegirl.org/hivetotable for a list of our producers and the menu (featuring dishes like Braised Beef with Laurel Bay and Honey on Toasts, Seasonal Fruit with Whipped Chevre and Blue Cheese Smoosh, Grilled Salmon with Blueberry Roasted Chili Sauce with Honey Drizzle, Lavender Honey Ice-cream with Lime Polenta Cookies and Peach Preserves).
5. Auction The brunt of auction idem donations this year is off the hook!! We have thousands of dollars of swag on the auction block in the themes of bees, honey, beekeeping, local food and wine, the arts, staycations, and outdoor gear. There will be a silent auction, a prize wheel, and a live auction (get excited about our auctioneer – a spitfire from your local FFA).
