Apparently, science stands behind the love and affection we all have for our favorite Hollywood man, magnificent Morgan Freeman. Despite his unbeatable acting skills, this filmmaker’s voice is what makes us fall for him any time he appears on the screen. According to some scientists, the deepness of his vocal gives people impression of integrity, competence and physical power.
This time, he’s stealing our hearts and attention with his new hobby. As it turns out, Freeman became a beekeeper and we can’t be more glad. This speaks a lot about him as a person concerned for the well-being of our planet who is willing to turn his pretty huge ranch into a bee sanctuary. He believes how this decision would contribute to the process of reviving the bee population.
The importance of the bees for us as humans and for the planet is immense. They help provide large portions of the food we consume on a daily basis and have a great role in the balance of the ecosystem.
Bees are responsible for pollinating about one-sixth of the flowering plant species worldwide and approximately 400 different agricultural types of plant. This means that without them, at least one-third of the food we eat will no longer be available and our plates would look totally different.
The sad and pretty much concerning reality is that the number of bees is decreasing steadily.
Jodi Monelle, the founder and the CEO of LIVEKINDLY says how “The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) states that “Researchers are calling the mass disappearance ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’” and that “The number of hives in the United States is now at its lowest point in the past 50 years. Whilst researchers are still theorizing the main cause of colony collapses, it is widely recognized that environmental damage is having a hugely negative impact on their (very delicate) ecosystem.”
Besides the highly nutritious honey they provide us with, bees are extremely important factor when it comes to feeding other living organisms, which means that without them, the planet will lose birds, mice, squirrels, and other animals.
It is why projects as that of Morgan Freeman are essential for helping keep the bees alive. He first spoke of this new hobby of his during Jimmy Fallon’s show back in 2014. He talked what it feels like to be around these precious pollinators and how skillful he’s become around them. His Mississippi ranch of 124-acre is now a bee paradise full of fruit trees, clover, magnolia trees, and lavender.
He started all this by importing 26 hives full of bees from Arkansas that he fed sugar water.
This is what he had to say:
“There is a concerted effort for bringing bees back onto the planet…We do not realize that they are the foundation, I think, of the growth of the planet, the vegetation…I have a lot of flowering things, and I have a gardener too.
“As she takes care of the bees too, all she does is figure out, ‘OK, what would they like to have?’, so we have got acres and acres of clover, and we have some planting stuff like lavender, I have got like, maybe 140 magnolia trees, big blossoms.”
“I have not ever used the beekeeping hat with my bees. They haven’t stung me yet, as right now I am not trying to harvest honey or anything, but I just feed them…I also think that they understand, ‘Hey, don’t bother this guy, he’s got sugar water here.”
Although what individuals like Morgan Freeman do for the sake of preserving as much bees as possible is extraordinary, it’s up to each and every one of us to finally start appreciating the hard work of these tiny insects and do our best to provide them with conditions for completing their mission, and that’s keeping the environment and people alive.