The City of Grand Forks won’t be proclaiming May 29 as “Day of the Honey Bee,” but they will take the next closest step.
At its last regular meeting May 26, city council simply received for information a letter from Clinton Ekdahl for the proclamation.
Ekdahl stated in a letter to council that a third of all the food mankind consumes exists because of the tireless work of honey bees and 70 per cent of food crops are pollinated and partially, if not completely depend upon this key species.
Honey bees are disappearing at alarming and unsustainable rates all over the world for reasons not fully explained by science, but with the most likely cause being pesticides, he added.
“I know we don’t make proclamations—but it certainly does seem to be a good initiative on his part to recognize that honey bees are a good indicator of the health of our agricultural community,” said Mayor Brian Taylor to council.
Councillor Gary Smith put forward the motion and it was carried.
Taylor told the Gazette that it has been several years since council declared that they would no longer make proclamations regarding days and months honouring something.
“It goes back many years,” he said. “What happened was the city was inundated with requests for proclamations as many places are and made a decision to verbally and sometimes in letter form send their support for a project, but not proclaim a particular day or week or month because it just got out of control.”
