Bees & Refugees partners with locals who want to host beehives on their property. We maintain the hives and when it's time, we extract the honey. In challenging times, we want to provide our community with something sweet to get them through the COVID-19 crisis. Community members who host beehives will receive a frame of raw honey from the hive in their garden in addition to bee products such as propolis. Community members who pledge +£10 towards our project will receive a jar of honey from our first honey harvest -kindly send us your shipping address to Beesandrefugees@gmail.com. The health and safety, of community members receiving honey, our volunteers, our drivers, is our utmost priority during the COVID-19 crisis, with social distancing employed. We have already secured a balcony in Hammersmith Academy and three private gardens around H&F. We are also working on getting the council's permission to place hives in Ravenscourt park, Wendell Park and Sands end community kitchen.

What we'll deliver:

• Establish 20 bee colonies of the rare endangered native black bee
• Plant bee-friendly flowers and veggies
• Produce local honey and bee products for the community

Why it's a great idea:

Raw honey has long been used as one of the most effective folk remedies of all time. With its many medical uses and health benefits, honey has long been proven to be effective in the treatments of wounds. It also aids in gut health and digestion and helps boost your immunity. Cough syrup with honey makes it even more useful to treat coughs and sore throats. On the other hand, with more bees in our council there is a need to increase the amount of food there is available for them, together with local partners we will help and encourage wildflower and bee friendly planting schemes across our sites to ensure that we have more food available for bees while also offering food security and health benefits to the participants. Studies have found that the mental health benefits of gardening are extensive. Not only can regular gardening reduce mental health problems like depression and anxiety, but it can also reduce stress and combat high blood pressure, as well as improving overall health.

Steps to get it done:

• Project setup by acquiring and establishing 20 beehives
• Bee products sale in local stores & by post

Add any other details (optional) The project serves two distinct goals: first of which is environmental; with decreasing Bee populations and the risks that this problem poses, this project would help increasing the local bee population while also supporting a sustainable and organic way for their care. In parallel, Beekeeping can be a therapeutic occupation that provides some extra financial support for the participants in addition to help them overcome anxiety and depression, the project will be open to all interested refugees, with specific focus on women and young adults. In the future, we hope that we will be able to take this project to refugee camps. Our website is under construction but we have invested time in building our social media presence on Instagram, FB and Twitter.