Honey Bees, HCD, and me.

The 2024 Healthcare Design (HCD) Expo was held in Indianapolis, IN in October and I was invited to attend, not as a graphic designer for the marketing department for CS, but as a certified beekeeper. I would never have imagined attending an industry event to present my favorite hobby: honey bees.

I’ve been keeping bees for 14 years and became a University of Georgia certified beekeeper in 2012. I’ve given many presentations over the years, but none in a carefully-crafted exhibition hall booth. I was afraid that no one would want to hear my talk about bees, native bees, and pollinators and the pursuit of their sustainable existence with our own.

I was pleasantly surprised when small groups came to the booth, at first to enjoy the gourmet cupcakes and other treats and to listen to me and watch as I disassembled and explained the (empty) beehive CS had shipped to the show.

Each group would listen, some would ask questions, then I’d ask the group a question based on my talk, and anyone guessing correctly won a bee hotel. CS gave away several bee hotels that came fully assembled and ready to hang in a garden or patio. They allow a haven for native bees to nest and raise their young. Anyone with even a small garden can have one (or two). They help sustain the bees, who pollinate flowers, which make fruits and seeds for us, and many other fruit, nut, and seed-eating animals and birds.

During my talk, I drew on our booth’s theme of environmentally sustainable practices and materials to encourage people to be aware of nature. You don’t have to be a beekeeper to help bees or a gardener to raise flowering and fruit-bearing plants. The first and most important lesson is to just allow nature to be.

1. Weeds are wildflowers and are often the first and best source of pollen and nectar for all pollinators. They also enrich the soil and require little to no maintenance.

2. Meadows, not lawns. Lawns require labor, resources, and chemicals, which are time-consuming and costly while offering no benefit to the environment. Meadows are the opposite, providing habitat and forage for pollinators, birds, and other wildlife.

3. Sow seeds that produce native flowers and that will bear nectar and pollen. Bees feed exclusively on these two things, and it takes 4.5 million visits to nectar-bearing flowers for honey bees to make just one pound of honey. They need 50-100 pounds of honey to survive the winter.

4. Leave the leaves. They are natural mulch for your trees and shrubs and provide shelter for ground-dwelling bees. Many pollinators lay their eggs on leaves. Mowing and burning leaves prevent them from enriching the soil and diminish the pollinators that need them to survive.

5. Limit pesticides and toxic chemicals in your yard, or better still—don’t use them at all.

This message ties in with CS's sustainability message and the 5 Buckets of Mindful Health. CS has pledged to use recycled materials in many of its products, most recently our ARC product, Acrovyn® with Recycled Content. Each sheet of Acrovyn contains the equivalent of about130 plastic water bottles.

I am thrilled that CS has taken this step and committed to the environment. It is not beyond our skill or scope to exist in harmony with our environment.

by Holly Bayendor, CS Graphic Designer