A few months ago, Yarnoers received a mysterious unmarked calendar invite: "Yarno Surprise Event", for an event on a seemingly random Friday afternoon in November.
As you can imagine, Slack was a-buzz with theories. What could it possibly bee, planned so far in advance?
Nothing could have bee-pared us for the truth: Yarnoers would be treated to a virtual beekeeping session with John, head beekeeper at Rooftop Bees.
We logged into Zoom, unsure what to expect, to find Mark (our beekeeper-in-chief) and John dressed to the nines in beekeeping suits, surrounded by hives filled to the brim with buzzy bees.
And so, Yarno's beekeeping journey began.
Yarno is committed to making a difference. Our social corporate responsibility pledge is to support our environment and give back to our community. So, why did we choose bees? Well, did you know that;
- Bees are indispensable for agriculture. One third of crops worldwide are pollinated by honeybees - they are vital to our food security.
- As pollinators, bees contribute to complex, interconnected ecosystems, allowing for the coexistence of an array of different species.
- Bees are vital for the preservation of ecological balance and biodiversity in nature. They act as indicators of the state of the environment. Pretty cool, hey?
- In Australia alone, bees are responsible for $427 million annually in economic value through pollination, honey, and byproducts.
We are delighted to announce our partnership with Rooftop Bees, including the sponsorship of our very own Yarno hive! Adorned in regal Yarno green and the Yarno logo you know and love, our hive is an explosion of colour. And housed in our hive of luxury is our very own bee colony of around 30,000 bees, governed by our Queen B, Bee-Yarn-Ce (see what we did there?).
Partnering with Rooftop Bees to support a beehive allows us to learn, through a series of facilitated workshops, about the importance of bees in our ecosystem, to increase our awareness of sustainability practises more broadly and the business lessons we can learn from the hive.
Rooftop Bees are a pretty cool organisation. They install and maintain beehives on the rooftops (get it?!) of corporate buildings in Sydney to teach workplaces about the importance of bees, and encourage conversations around sustainability. Plus, if you don't have a rooftop, John will house and maintain your hive at his own location for you.
In our first session, we learnt a surprising amount about bees - turns out there's a lot to know (we barely scratched the surface)! But what really stood out was their hive mentality; the colony's single-mindedness to work only to benefit the hive.
It turns out, Yarnoers are a lot like bees. Hard working, busy remote workers, working together for the good of the team. Sounds like us, right?!
We're really excited to be a part of their corporate beekeeping program, and learn more from bees about teamwork!
Stay tuned for Bee-Yarn-Ce updates!
