Beepeeking with Negar Mirsalehi: Spring in the Bee Garden

Beepeeking at Gisou is all about giving you, our community, a peek inside the world of bees & beekeeping. As our Beekeeper-In-Chief, Negar Mirsalehi is excited to bring you along throughout the bee season!

“At Gisou, we eagerly anticipate and celebrate Bee Season every year as a significant part of our core mission: to raise awareness about the indispensable role of honey bees in our ecosystem. As the days grow longer and warmer, honey bees gear up for a bustling season of activity. 

Their colonies come alive, buzzing with energy as they prepare to forage on plentiful nectar and pollen. With swarming season on the horizon, we are excited for the important work that lies ahead.”

What’s happening in the Bee Garden in Spring?

The revival of honey bee colonies

During Bee Season, honey bee colonies undergo a remarkable transformation, reawakening after a a long winter. The buzzing hives become a hub of activity as bees fulfill their essential roles within the colony. Spring marks the beginning of a bustling period of growth and productivity.

Foraging for nectar and pollen

With an abundance of blooming flowers and blossoms, new season offers a huge variety of nourishment for honey bees. Worker bees venture out to collect nectar and pollen, a vital process known as foraging. As bees fly from flower to flower, they not only gather nectar and pollen for themselves but also facilitate pollination, which is the basis for plant reproduction.

Swarming season

As Bee Season progresses, the colonies grow in size and vitality. With this expansion comes the anticipation of swarming season, a natural phenomenon where a portion of the colony, along with a new queen, leaves the hive in search of a new home. Swarming represents an instinctive way for honey bees to propagate and establish new colonies, ensuring their continued survival. 

Our commitment to bee conservation: The Gisou Bees Project

At Gisou, we hold a deep commitment to bee conservation and the preservation of their vital habitats. Bee Season serves as a reminder of the urgent need to protect honey bees and their essential role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Through our initiatives and collaborations, we strive to raise awareness and actively contribute to the preservation of bee populations.

This bee season 2023, we have re-designed the Gisou Bees Project. With this project, we show our support of beekeeping efforts through several initiatives such as cultivating bee gardens, collaborating with charities that promote like minded objectives, spreading education about the bees through workshops and online with our Bee Learning course, and gifting wildflower seeds that support bees on special occasions throughout the year. This is a special Gisou initiative in support of beekeeping practices and bee welfare to fight the declining bee population worldwide. 

The Gisou Bee Learning Course 

As part of the Gisou bees project, we launched a revamp of The Gisou Bee Learning Course. This is a comprehensive and educational step-by-step program that supports our core mission — to raise awareness around the importance of bees and inspire a new generation of beekeepers — and is for anyone who takes an interest in bees and understands their importance as well as the crucial role a beekeeper plays  in the colony’s health and survival.

Throughout the program - which is offered for free - you will learn the (beekeeping) ropes which you can test by taking a quiz at the end of each class and see how much you’ve learned! The new and improved bee learning course covers topics such as the importance of the bees, bee basics, beekeeping 101, bee products and how to harvest honey.

New Mirsalehi Bee Garden

To continue our commitment to sustainably-sourced honey, we’re also opening a new Bee Garden this season. This new garden will also be used for educational purposes, events and training opportunities such as workshops for those interested in learning about beekeeping practices.

We scouted for a wonderful location where our bees can live and forage under the best circumstances. We are finishing up the garden and soon we will start building bee barns for our hives. Stay tuned for our opening this summer!