BMH Wildflower Promotion

Hi, I'm Lawrence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today we're going to be talking about our wildflower promotion. So here at Black Mountain Honey, we are so keen to kind of improve the natural pollinator habitat for all pollinator species. Now that means that of throughout our business ventures, we look to improve and diversify pollinator habitats wherever we possibly can. So we're only a small company and we can only kind of do a very limited amount. We're looking at trialling a scheme in the very, very near future whereby for every single jar of honey we sell, we're going to commit to planting a single square foot of wildflower meadow. If we sell 10,000 jars in a year, we will plant 10,000 square feet of wildflower meadow. We're looking and kind of talking to farmers at the moment to kind of get an agreement with them in order to kind of use their land to do that. So that's something for the future. But in the meantime, we didn't kind of want to wait for that. We wanted to kind of positively look to improve these pollinator habitats as soon as we possibly can. So what we've developed is we are giving away a single pack of wildflower Black Mountain Honey seeds with every single jar of Black Mountain Honey purchased. So it doesn't matter if you get that from me direct or if you get it from any of our stockists. We're doing absolutely loads of these and they're available at every single place where you can buy Black Mountain Honey. So all you have to do is ask when you go into the shop to buy one, say, have you got any free Black Mountain Honey wildflower seeds? And they should be able to give you a free pack. In case they give you a pack And they don't tell you what's in it. It's not a delicious yogurt topping. These are wildflower seeds for your garden. So what I want people to do with these wildflower seeds is I want them to go out and I want them to plant them. So sounds obvious, doesn't it? But don't leave them on your shelf. Don't kind of leave them in the back of your car. Get out there and kind of plant them. So ideally plant them in your garden. Maybe take a nice container, or if you've got some— Flower pots. land, just kind of till the land over, break it up so it's nice and loose, and then just chuck the wildflower seeds in there and kind of give them regular water until they're completely set and they start to grow. And then they should be able to get all of the kind of nutrients and the water they need from the ground. Wildflower plants are notoriously hardy anyway, so they don't really need a huge amount of love nor attention. They'll just get on and they'll produce a kind of really lovely, beautiful display for your garden. And more importantly than that, they will provide the all-important nectar and pollen for all of these wildflower species. So what I would be really keen if everyone does is every time you buy a jar of this honey, get yourself the free packet of wildflower seeds and just chuck them in your garden. Even, even if you're not going to kind of tend to them, just take the, take the seeds and just throw them in a kind of disused part of your garden and watch the flowers grow. Now, if you've got a perfectly manicured garden and you don't want to put wildflower seeds in it, I get that. But you can, I mean, they'll go really, really nicely in any planted kind of container or tray. You can start them off inside if you want to, but there's really no need as long as you wait until all of the frosts are clear. So maybe kind of like around May, go outside and plant these seeds and you'll be able to see a lovely display. So if you're not keen to plant them in your garden though, There's nothing stopping you going and looking for an untended piece of land where it's kind of just grassy or there's some untended soil and just go and chuck your wildflower seeds. Like, they are wildflowers and they're very easy to grow. All you have to do is chuck them in the ground and they will grow. So there's my plea to you. If you buy the honey from us, you get a free pack of wildflower seeds. And they're yours to kind of grow and for them to spread and multiply. So a number of the plants that we have in this year's 2020 mix are self-seeding, so hopefully if you plant them out and let them kind of go until the end of their flowering period, they should self-seed and then they will seed the area around them, and then next year you should have plants just kind of naturally growing there, and then year after year they should kind of grow further. And as long as the birds don't come along and eat them all, or we don't get a disastrous winter that kills everything, then you should kind of get these plants coming back year after year. So why are wildflower plants important to pollinators? So the problem that you have in the UK, and probably across the world, is that people want beautiful manicured lawns. And I fully admit I was one of them. Even over the last few years, I've kind of treated my lawns with weed killer to get rid of kind of any species that isn't grass to have a nice lawn. And I only come to kind of think about it recently that it's really a bad thing to do. We want to kind of give all pollinator species, so I'm not just limited— limiting this to honeybees, we want to give all pollinator species the widest variety of kind of flowers and trees available for them to forage on. They need these trees and these flowers in order to thrive, and they need them in order to kind of multiply and then get through the winter period. Now, a small packet of seeds like this is going to provide a very, very small amount of nectar and pollen, so that's why we've gone slightly bigger than that and we've gone for 6 kilos. So we've ordered that in bulk, we've got 6 kilos there. That's enough to do 12 acres of wildflower meadow. Um, I'm not sure if any of you know how big an acre is. It's pretty damn big. So 12 acres. So everybody who buys a jar of honey from us this season takes their one single packet of Black Mountain Honey wildflower seeds and just chucks them in an unused area, then we've potentially got 12 whole acres of wildflower seeds going out there. And then year on year they're going to multiply, and then— The pollinator species are going to have access to these year on year. So what I've committed to do, and I think this is a really nice way of doing it, is if you do a regular drive anywhere, somewhere, do you know what I mean, you might drop your kids off somewhere, you might go to school, you might drive to work, have a look out when you're driving for an untended place. So don't do it on anybody's property, but if there's just kind of like a verge or somewhere safe, so don't do it at the edge of roundabouts, But somewhere that's kind of clearly untended and quite a safe area to stop. Why not just stop there one day once the frosts have gone and just chuck out your wildflower seeds? No one's going to care. And then what you can do is every time that you drive past there throughout the weeks and the months of the summer, you can see these plants growing. And then maybe you can stop and see what kind of wildlife is being attracted to these. I'm going to do that, and I've got a few kind of areas in mind. I'm just going to chuck some seeds and see what happens and see if they grow. So what I also urge anyone to do, and this would be really, really good if people can kind of embrace this and get on top of it, is take some pictures. So when you get your seeds, maybe kind of tweet or take a picture of you planting your seeds, and then let people know that you've kind of got some seeds from a honey producer. I don't want the plug, you don't need to say my business name. Say a local honey producer has given me some free seeds, and I urge all other honey producers to kind of do a similar scheme. And then that way, that 12 acres of wildflower meadow can grow and grow and grow, and other beekeepers can get on board. And then if we get kind of a real big movement behind it, we can create kind of like a step change in the amount of available pollinator forage, um, that's available throughout the year. I think that'd be such a fantastic kind of movement to create, and you can help be a part of it. So like I say, you don't need to plug the company at all, but if you, if you're lucky enough to kind of buy some of our honey and get some free wildflower seeds, it'd be really great if you could just take some pictures throughout the process. So maybe when you're planting them, once they start coming up, and then once they're in full bloom, and retweet that across social media and see if we can get other companies and organisations involved to kind of get behind this movement and plant some wildflower seeds to help increase pollinator forage all the way across the UK. So that's it for today's video. Keep it really, really short and sweet. The first 5 people to comment below will get a free pack Of wildflower seeds from Black Mountain Honey. I'll just pop them in the post to you. It's not going to cost me much. But like I say, I'd really appreciate any retweets, any shares that we can get for this, and see how many people we can kind of get behind this movement. So please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.