August 19th is World Honey Bee Day and Abell Pest Control will be launching the Bee ‘cause we Care program.
We talked to Mike Heimbach Director of Marketing, Sales and National Accounts at Abell Pest Control to learn more about it
Q: What is the Bee ‘cause we Care initiative?
M.H.: Bee ‘cause we care is a long-term effort by Abell to help rebuild bee populations.
Q: What is it that the program tries to achieve?
M.H.: Our focus is on increasing awareness of the problem with bee populations, directly and indirectly generate funds for research and participate in doing things that will help increase bee populations.
Q: Is this a program for Ontario only?
M.H.: No this is North America wide in all of our service locations.
Q: Is this a one year program?
M.H.: This is a long-term initiative for Abell. Change won’t come fast, we’ll have to keep working and learning to make a real impact.
Q: What are the plans for the future?
M.H.: The Bee ‘cause we Care program talks about three main features, Beehive relocation, sponsorship and bee keeping, can you tell us more about them?
It’s not so much beehive relocation as ensuring bee swarms are not harmed and relocated to a save long-term home for them. Abell is promoting and training more people internally to have the knowledge of bees, even keep bees, that will allow us all to make a difference in the future.
Q: Being Abell Pest Control a pest management company someone could say this program doesn’t pair with the nature of your services, what would you say about it?
M.H.: Folks here at Abell are insect experts. We’re often called on to deal with insects that pose public health threats in people’s homes and businesses. But we’re also fascinated by the many insects that are hugely beneficial to us humans. Bees being an important one. As a culture of people fascinated with insects, it’s not surprising to see how Abell people have really taken to helping to save bees.
Q: What should I do If I have a bee problem in my property and I want your help?
M.H.: Most times bees individually aren’t a problem for people. But if you have a huge swarm of bees that have taken residence on your property, let us know. We’ll try to work with local bee keepers to get the swarm removed and relocated. Our goal is to save the bees and get them relocated. Abell will even pick up the cost most of the time.
Q: Regarding the Employee Bee Keeping program what is the level of engagement so far?
M.H.: This has been hugely popular. We have many people signing up all across Canada. We’re starting our fist orientation course this August but the hives themselves won’t be in operation until spring 2018.
Finally, a message to ask everybody to join the World Honey Bee Day celebration.
M.H.: August 19th is World Honey Bee day. Abell is celebrating by announcing a long-term scholarship with the University of Guelph’s Environmental Science Departments Honey Bee Research Facility. To help all of us at Abell celebrate, we’re shipping a jar on honey, made by our bee friends at the U of G, to every single employee at Abell. That’s 500 + jars. The bees are working overtime right now to make all of the golden goodness Join us by visiting abellsavesbee.com and learn more about what we can all to help revitalize honey bee populations in North America.
