Our Biggest Ever Big Give

We were blown away by the response to our Thriving Hives, Thriving Lives campaign, our biggest ever Big Give. The target was £50,000, we knew it was a stretch but with more and more communities asking for support we knew it was worth aiming high. Hitting the target needed support of all kinds from our amazing community fundraisers, to all those who helped us spread the word, to businesses that donated in-kind and of course our individual donors, thank you, we really couldn’t do it without you.

Community Spirit Stories

We shared Community Spirit Stories that demonstrate how communities are turning community spirit in to community action through beekeeping.

Informative and Inspiring Online Events

We held two events, both of which were a big hit!

Mastering Top-Bar Natural Beekeeping

In this video, Nathalie B. shares her expertise on the many benefits of Horizontal Top-Bar hives for both bees and beekeepers. She offer practical tips on how to manage these hives, and explain how they provide a more cost-effective, simpler, and more natural approach to beekeeping.Nathalie B. is the creator and owner of Bee Mindful, a full-service beekeeping company that offers comprehensive beekeeping apprenticeships and workshops in sustainable and natural beekeeping. She is a certified Texas Master Beekeeper with over 13 years experience in all hive styles and close to 400 colonies of her own. Among other things, Nathalie is the co-host of the popular beekeeping podcast, “The Hive Jive“.

Make Your Own Beeswax Lip Balm

This online workshop covers how to make your own beeswax-based lip balm from scrath. Beeswax is the ideal base for a winter lip balm, locking in moisture and creating a barrier to the harsh weather.

In this video you’ll get the full formular and how-to instructions to make lipbalm at home from Niki Backes. Niki is a beeswax value-add formulation specialist with 20 years experience.

Make the perfect home-made gift for winter ☃️.

Community Spirit Ambassadors

Three of our high-profile supporters volunteered as Community Spirit Ambassadors. They helped us spread the word on the campaign far and wide. They shared how they found out about Bees Abroad, what their favourite story is and why they support us. 

Sarah’s Community Spirit Ambassador video message
Click here to watch on Instagram

“…Bees Abroad, the amazing beekeeping charity of which I’m proud to be both a Patron and Community Spirit Ambassador.For 25 years Bees Abroad has been empowering marginalised groups across Africa to establish community led sustainable micro enterprises. Every single Bees Abroad project is designed specifically around the local ecology and the needs of the participants…” - Sarah Wyndham Lewis

Laurence’s Community Spirit Ambassador video message

“…I’m delighted to be a Community Spirit Ambassador for Bees Abroad. …from the initial contact to the subsequent meetings online I was fascinated by…the work they [Bees Aborad] do and the real sheer enthusiasm.” - Laurence Edwards

Jo’s Community Spirit Ambassador video message
Click here to watch on Instagram

“Hi I’m Jo, a proud Community Spirit Ambassador for 2024 Bees Abroad Big Give.This is an amazing charity working to set-up beekeeping projects around the world. The result is enriched communities better able to educate their children, financial independence, put simply Thriving Hives equals Thriving Lives.” - Jo Hemesley 

Seven Days, Seven Prizes - Prize Draw

Each day of the Big Give week, we randomly selected a donor who gave to our campaign that day to receive a prize!  To be eligible, you simply had to donate to the Big Give and sign-up to receive emails from us.

Keep your eyes peeled – winners will be announced by 8th January.

Prizes donated that we’ll be gifting to our supporters.

1. Bee Our Guest – Overnight stay at the Royal Lancaster London

2. Bermondsey Street Bees Hamper

3. Social Media Masterclass with Marketing Executive at the Royal Lancaster London.

4. Black Mountain Honey Nuc (Bee Quiz)

5. An experience day with Bermondsey Street Bees at their regeneratively managed farm.

6. Champagne Afternoon Tea for two at The Ritz, London 

7. Hiver Beer Experience day

Not only that but if you signed-up to our newsletter in the run-up to the campaign you were in with a chance of receiving a beautiful gift from The Wild Bee Company or The London Bee Company.

A big Bees Abroad thank you to all the businesses who supported us through in-kind donations.

Our community's favourite story

What’s your favourite story? We’re asking the Bees Abroad community to share what their favourite project story is. 📢  Open to the end of January 2025!

Christine, our Campaigns and Communication Manager shares her favourite story:

“My favourite Bees Abroad story is Okun Owa School in Nigeria. I love this story for three reasons: The project supports teaching beekeeping in school, I would have loved to learn that when I was at school. What a great way to understand the natural world, food production and business.
Paul Laurence, one of the students loved the beekeeping lessons so much he decided to build his own hives. He now has five hives and keeps bees at home.The school reinvested. They make an income from selling the honey and they used it to buy a water tank to supply the school with water.”

We want to know what your favourite story is! Tell us by sharing a photo and a message, or a video. As a thank you, we’ll enter you to a draw to receive a Balmond’s Skin Care hamper.

Share your favourite story