JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Thousands of bee enthusiasts visited the Jacksonville Fairgrounds Sunday to learn all about bees and beekeeping at the Honey Bee Festival.
After 26 years of working as a letter carrier, Rob Bixby is trying something new.
“I just recently retired so it gives us something to do almost daily,” Bixby said. “We walk out and just look at the girls.”
Those girls? Bees. A hobby that expanded his family by the thousands.
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That’s because the typical artificial hive can hold about 50,000 bees.
“It’s a whole new thing,” Bixby said. “It really is. You really can’t understand what it entails. It’s time consuming hobby business or whatever but it’s not time critical. I have to do things but I don’t have to do it today.”
Now, what started as a hobby has turned into an opportunity to educate people on the importance of these bees.
“If it wasn’t for the pollen we wouldn’t have the plants,” Bixby said.
In fact, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates a third of the world’s food production depends on bees.
That’s why Rob attended the Honey Bee Festival, a gathering of bee lovers to help showcase all they do.
“I said what better thing to have a Honey Bee Festival on National Honey Bee Day to connect the community to what we do as beekeepers all our vendors or volunteers behind us are all related to the bees and beekeeping,” Michael Leach, owner of Bee Friends Farms, said. “They’re here to reach out to the community and share what they love and their passion about bees, and what bees do for us and what we can do for the bees.”
Leach put together the festival as a way to answer community questions about these bees.
He said the turnout has been in the thousands.
“It’s totally exciting,” he said. “I get really excited to see the people come out and see the smiles and definitely the community and families that come together to just enjoy the day and the experiences they get to take away from the day.”
People of all ages were out to hang with the bees on Sunday. Kids and adults got to learn from the people who work alongside these helpful insects.
“This gives them a place where they can get it from the source,” Bixby said. “People that actually deal with them every day have learned and experienced these bees can and will do for us.”
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And this story wouldn’t be complete without a bee pun. So, here’s what Bixby hoped people walked away with:
“Just BEE friendly. That works two ways,” he said.