The title *”Let’s BEE Friends!” is a word play in Lithuanian as “bičiulis”, a variant of the word “friend”, is etymologically connected to the word “bitė,” the word for bee (the plural for “of bees” – “bičių” being the closest link).
“Over the project’s past two years, we have shown that the urban beekeeping encouragement project isn’t just a one-off event. Other businesses have begun following our example, and we have encouraged citizens to support a petition which calls for the protection of bees across the EU. All of the SBA Group’s manufacturing companies and business centres have bees living successfully, gathering nectar and being cared for. After performing thorough research at an accredited national laboratory, we also disproved the myth, that honey collected in cities is indeed clean and of excellent quality. As such, we invite other companies and organisations to contribute to conserving bees, which are dwindling around the world,” says SBA Urban board chairman Lionginas Šepetys.
According to him, the Lithuanian office of the global corporation Moody’s took interest in this initiative after receiving a gift of SBA’s urban bee honey upon settling in the Green Hall business centre and finding out about this project’s goal.
“Moody’s are delighted to be participating in the Let’s BEE friends beekeeping project, an initiative which closely aligns with one of our core values – sustainability. We look forward to helping preserve the dwindling bee population and making a positive social impact on the wider community by fostering urban beekeeping at the local level,” says Mariano Andrade Gonzalez, Lithuania Country Head.
Professional beekeeper Paulius Chockevičius will assist Moody’s and SBA staff with the care of both beehives located on the Green Hall 3 business centre‘s roof.
“Urban beekeeping has gained popularity across many European cities, as well as those around the world. It is excellent that this idea, strengthened by the mission of conserving dwindling global bee populations, is taking root in Lithuania as well. Bees are safe in the cities because they do not face chemical use, there’s a wide variety of flowers and they get along well with people. Peaceful bees have been settled on the roof of the Green Hall business centre, and they gather nectar from Vilnius’ surrounding green zones: Žvėrynas, Vingis Park, Šeškinės Ozas, Karoliniškės Landscape Reserve, Bernardine Garden and even Kalnų Park,” says beekeeper Paulius Chockevičius, who will be helping Moody’s and SBA staff take care of the bees atop the Green Hall business centre.
The SBA Group has invited the Presidential Palace, Seimas, cabinet and all the individual ministries to join the urban beekeeping project Susibičiuliaukime! Some of the institutions accepted the invitation and are already looking into practical opportunities of settling bees on their institution’s roof.
SBA initiated the urban beekeeping project ‘Susibičiuliaukime!’ that invites bee conservation in 2019, when it settled 19 families of bees on the roofs of its business centres and manufacturing companies. The honey they bring in was tested and it was found to not contain any heavy metals, pesticides, or other pollutants, with its quality no lesser than that of honey collected in rural areas.
The bees are tended to by the SBA companies’ own staff, with the help of professional beekeepers in some cases. The collected honey is sampled by the companies’ employees, and gifted to business partners and clients. It has been calculated that last year, SBA’s bees collected a total of some 500 kg of honey.
The SBA initiative Susibičiuliaukime! Was recognised at the PR Impact awards for 2020 as the best social responsibility project in Lithuania.
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