At Balmonds, we know that bees are more than just honey-makers - they’re pollinators, protectors of biodiversity, and providers of one of our favourite natural ingredients: beeswax. As we celebrate World Bee Day, we’re proud to shine a spotlight on the incredible work of Bees Abroad - a charity using sustainable beekeeping to transform lives in rural communities across Africa.

From building climate resilience to empowering women with thriving small businesses, bees and beekeeping are at the heart of long-lasting, positive change. In this exclusive interview, Bees Abroad shares how their projects support livelihoods, nurture the environment, and offer natural solutions like beeswax - the hero ingredient in Balmonds’ award-winning Skin Salvation balm.

Join us in conversation with Christine Ratcliffe, Campaign and Communications Manager with Bees abroad, as we explore the connection between the hive and your skincare routine, and discover how you can help protect the bees that protect our planet.

ABOUT BEES ABROAD & ETHICAL BEEKEEPING

• For those unfamiliar with Bees Abroad, can you tell us a little about your mission and the communities you work with around the world?

BA: Our mission is to use beekeeping as a tool to enable rural communities to empower themselves to achieve their own visions for a better life. We provide training and mentoring to communities through local partners on beekeeping, business skills and caring for the local environment. We are committed to supporting rural communities across Africa through beekeeping.  

• What role do bees and beekeeping play in supporting sustainable livelihoods in the communities you partner with?

BA: Beekeeping helps build resilient livelihoods while protecting the environment. We have a holistic approach to sustainable beekeeping that covers the three pillars of sustainability: environment, social and economic. Bees and beekeeping are a fantastic tool for sustainable livelihoods for so many reasons. One of the main reasons is that the communities we work with are majority smallholder often subsistence farmers.

 Beekeeping offers an additional revenue stream for farmers that is low land use, so doesn’t displace other important crops, provides relatively high-value products of honey and beeswax and the bees offer a pollination service to naturally boost the yield of other crops. 

The health of a bee colony and quality of honey are inextricable from the local environment and many of our projects include planting forage, including trees. In Sierra Leone for example, we have supported the planting of 40,000 seedlings with one of our local partners, Rory’s Well. 

• Bees Abroad supports beekeeping as a tool for empowerment, particularly for women and young people. Can you share a story that highlights the transformative power of bees?

BA: Which one to choose! We shared the story of the Nyakach Sustainable Beekeepers women’s group during our Christmas campaign. This group of women came together to support each other in self-sufficiency. They took up beekeeping with the help of Bees Abroad and learned how to make beauty products with beeswax. They now have a successful local brand making moisturising creams and hair products. They're reinvesting the money to build more enterprises and plan on buying an egg incubator to start a chicken-keeping project, part of their plan to build financial stability.

• How do you approach ethical and sustainable beekeeping, and why is that so important in today’s climate and biodiversity crisis?

BA: One of our core values is that our work is locally appropriate, that means appropriate to the communities we work with, as no one is the same, and appropriate to the local environment. We receive requests directly from communities for our support and we assess whether beekeeping would be appropriate for their local environment and what the needs of the community are. 

Beekeeping is a great tool to help build climate resilience in communities that are on the front line of climate change. Honey bees are native to sub-Saharan Africa, they are part of the natural ecosystems and are important pollinators for African flora. Like any animal we humans manage, we have to be conscious of the effect on wild populations, we consider the density of any existing managed bee hives in an area before supporting adding additional ones. That combined with the pollination service of bees, our tree planting efforts and education of beekeepers on pesticides and caring for the local environment makes for a climate and nature friendly livelihood.

THE ROLE OF BEES IN OUR ECOSYSTEM

• Why are bees so essential, not just to honey production, but to the entire health of the planet?

BA: According to the United Nations (UN) Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) around ⅓ of our food is dependent on bee pollination. The health of our species is dependent on the health of bee species. Honey bees are essential for this but other types of bees are important too; there are over 20,000 species of bee, it’s bumble bees rather than honey bees that pollinate tomatoes for example. 

When we look at non-cultivated plants, like wildflowers, these are dependent on bees too. In fact, bees and flowers coevolved. Our flowering natural world needs bees. There are also increasingly interesting connections to other natural processes being discovered, such as research suggesting bees can support soil health. 

• What’s the biggest misconception about bees or beekeeping that you’d love to correct?

BA: I’ll offer three options:

1. Bees often seem to be portrayed as male in films for example, but most bees in a colony are female. All the worker bees are female and the male bees (drones) only purpose is to mate with the queen.

2. That bees are yellow and black. There are blue, green, white, red bees too! Check out alkali bees, blue banded and miner bees. So beautiful

3. Bees are not aggressive. They are in fact defensive. Just because they defend their colony of babies (larvae), their previous, single queen and resources (pollen and honey) really well and "to death" doesn't mean they are aggressive. It just means we are the attackers.
   

FROM HIVE TO HERO PRODUCT

• At Balmonds, we use natural beeswax in our bestselling Skin Salvation balm. From your perspective, what makes beeswax such a special, multifunctional ingredient?

BA: I do a lot of work outside and can get very dry skin. I love your Skin Salvation balm, especially the simple, natural ingredients, you could almost eat it! Beeswax is an amazing product, it’s natural, has antibacterial and antifungal properties, is biodegradable and non-toxic. Its physical properties make it highly versatile, you can make a lot of different products from beeswax from face products to candles to shoe polish. 

• Beeswax is often overshadowed by honey, but it plays an essential role in both the hive and in natural skincare. What are some of the traditional or lesser-known uses of beeswax you’ve encountered through your work?

BA: Our Partnership Manager for Ghana, Trisha, works with some communities who are living well below the poverty line. In these communities when something breaks the first thing to try is to fix it, rather than replace it. Trisha told us that one of the communities she works with was using beeswax to create a compound to fix holes in plastic items like water buckets. 

• How can businesses like ours honour the work of bees and the beekeepers who care for them, while still using bee products responsibly?

BA: Responsible and sustainable is key. We teach our beekeepers to leave enough honeycomb for the bees to eat. We have to work with bees, with nature and use resources carefully, in a way they can be easily replaced and, where possible, support and give back so natural and human systems are stronger for having us involved, not weaker.

PROTECTING BEES, PROTECTING OUR FUTURE

• What are the biggest threats facing bees right now—and what can individuals do to help?

BA: Climate change and habitat loss are the big ones. Individuals can support bees in a number of ways:

1. Planting bee friendly plants in a garden or window box
2. Not using pesticides like weed killer
3. Taking part in No-Mow-May - don’t cut the dandelions! They’re great for bees.

• How does climate change impact beekeeping and bee populations in the regions Bees Abroad supports?

BA: Some of our communities have been hit by climate change in the starkest way possible. One community we supported, Ray of Hope in Uganda, is located in the Rwenzori mountains. The Rwenzori mountains are higher than the Alps and have glaciers. Like glaciers around the world, warming temperatures means more melt water and more precipitation as rain, rather than snow that stays in the mountains. 

Unfortunately the Ray of Hope community experienced a catastrophic flood last year. Community members lost their lives and many more lost their livelihoods including hives. They got back in contact with us to request support replacing the hives lost to the floods. We provided support to replace the hives and they quickly got them recolonised.

This community is determined to rebuild from the devastation of a climate change related event with the help of beekeeping.

• What gives you hope when it comes to the future of bees?

BA: People love bees, that gives us hope. We fight for what we love. 

PERSONAL & INSPIRATIONAL

• What first drew you to work with Bees Abroad and beekeeping in general?

BA: When I joined I was the only non-beekeeper at Bees Abroad!  I was drawn to their work because I could see what an effective tool it was for communities to create lasting change, and that the work is grassroots, driven by the communities themselves. It’s a practical tool for change, and working with those who need change the most urgently, that often get left behind by big programs. I could see that everyone at Bees Abroad deeply believes in what they do, we’re only a team of three paid staff but a team of 43 in total, our volunteers dedicate a huge amount of their time and expertise because they believe in the work. 

• If everyone reading this could take one action this World Bee Day, what would you urge them to do?

BA: Get curious! Learn some bee facts, have a look at what flowers bees like visiting, look for honey made by local beekeepers. The more we’re curious, the more we learn, the more we connect with what we’re curious about.

• And finally, what’s your favourite bee fact that always makes people smile?

It’s got to be the waggle dance! Bees do a little dance when they get back to their hive to tell the other bees what forage they have found. It gets better, bees actually have a dance off! The bee that’s the most enthusiastic about the forage they have found (there’s loads, it’s really close by, it’s our favourite!) win the vote from the audience and the other bees go check out the place the winner has found. 

Support Bees, Empower Communities

This World Bee Day, you can make a real difference. Support the vital work of Bees Abroad by learning more, donating, or sharing their mission — because thriving bees mean thriving communities and a healthier planet. And if you’re looking for a way to honour the hive in your daily routine, explore Balmonds natural skincare range featuring beeswax, sustainably sourced and chosen for its incredible skin-soothing, protective properties. Together, we can protect pollinators, people, and the planet — one balm at a time.

Christine has been the Campaigns and Communications Manager at Bees Abroad since 2023, where she has led multiple campaigns, fundraising initiatives, and communications projects. Her case studies for Bees Abroad have won Big Give awards two years in a row.

“I love working with Bees Abroad because I can see directly the impact the charity makes working with communities. The volunteer staff that work with our local NGO partners and communities themselves are dedicated, and go above and beyond, and that’s reflected in the long-term relationships that last well beyond project ‘graduation’ when communities become self-sustaining in their beekeeping activities. Bees Abroad helps create lasting change through a practical, tangible approach that is good for people and planet.”