Just Bee There: The German Bee Week
The commitment to bees is growing in German golf: the Bavarian Bee Week, which took place for the first time in 2020 in the Bavarian Golf Association, will become the German Bee Week for the first time in 2024. In addition to the Baden-Württemberg Golf Association, which already took part in 2023, the Schleswig Holstein Golf Association and the Hessian Golf Association are now also joining the project. The aim of the campaign is to actively support the issue of species conservation with the affiliated golf clubs. The German Bee Week will be held from May 20 to 26, around World Bee Day on May 20.
“It is of course great that the small Bavarian Bee Week has become a German Bee Week and that we are also represented in Schleswig-Holstein,” explains Bianca Ruf, responsible for marketing and event management at the Bavarian Golf Association. “This allows us to reach a much wider audience and we now have a presence in the north of Germny in particular.”
Better public perception
Schleswig-Holsteins golf federation is convinced of the importance of the projects for more biodiversity in golf: “The positive response, especially from outside the golf community, to the activities in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in relation to “Golf course habitat – we promote biodiversity” have shown how important it is to get involved in this area in Schleswig-Holstein too,” explained Kolja Hause, Head of the Golf Association’s office. “Our golf courses have already been very active in terms of biodiversity and sustainability for years and use a wide variety of collaborations, whether through the DGV with GolfBiodivers or the DVL with the “Blütenbunt & Insektenreich” project. It is now also important to bring this activity closer to the public. This is where justbeethere.de and the Bee Week really come into place.”
Christofer Hattemer, President of the Hessian Golf Association, takes a similar view: “In Germany, many bee and wild bee species are under threat due to the loss of habitats. Hesse’s golf courses do an important job here by offering these pollinators food and protection. We want to draw attention to this as part of German Bee Week.”
Registration for clubs
Interested golf courses in all four golf associations can obtain more detailed information and register at https://justbeethere.de/home.html. The project week is relatively open in terms of implementation at the individual golf clubs. In principle, any club can register as many tournaments or rounds as they like for Bee Week and then support projects for more biodiversity in the club with the help of registration fees or donations. The tee gifts are provided by the golf associations. The registration deadline is May 1, 2024.
The project week also includes support in the area of press relations. A joint hashtag #justbeethere is also being used to launch joint communication on social media channels.
For Bianca Ruf, this is not the end of the Bee Week’s growth curve: “Of course, it would be great if even more golf associations would join in the coming years.” However, Bee Week is already a successful project.
