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12.08.20

In July this year, JCommerce joined the initiative of urban beekeepers and built an apiary on the roof of the office in Katowice, where 2 bee families moved into, a total number of 15,000 bees. The apiary is looked after by Michał Pilch, a software tester at JCommerce. He is also a beekeeper and one of the founders of the Municipal Beekeepers Association in Katowice.

The action is part of an initiative promoted by the Katowice City Hall, which aims to stop the mass extinction of honey bees in the world by building urban apiaries.

In the city of Katowice we have been sowing meadows for 3 years, which are a shelter for small animals and insects. Now we are going one step further and set up beehives – says Marcin Krupa, the Mayor of Katowice. Several dozen hives have already been set up in the city, including on the roofs of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, swimming pools, the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Silesia, “Tiramisu” office buildings or on the roof of the Katowice Business Center.

Our employees, who designed and prepared the space for bees, were involved in the construction of the urban apiary. Together, they painted the roof, planted honey plants and organized the move of the bees from the existing apiary to a new place – says Piotr Zyguła, CEO at JCommerce.

Urban apiaries

The extinction of bees is associated with the use of large amounts of pesticides, GMOs in modern agriculture or the popularity of monoculture farming, which are unfavorable for bees. All this means that bees have much better living conditions in cities where these unfavorable factors do not occur. Smog is also not a threat to them, because it occurs only in the winter, and bees live too shortly to accumulate toxins. In addition, they have extremely sensitive receptors and can easily sense pollution in the nectar, so the honey produced in the city is as good as that produced in the countryside.

Eco-responsibility of business

JCommerce for years has been involved in initiatives supporting sustainable development, this is why it supports charity actions, donates electronic equipment and office furniture to schools and aid institutions, has stopped using water dispensers in plastic bottles and carries out energy saving program. Setting up an apiary is therefore another step in this direction.

Honey instead of plastic gadgets? We say yes! In the future, we will be happy to share the honey from our apiary with participants of meetups and conferences, as well as job fairs where we search for new talents to work in our company – says Magda Richta, HR Marketing & Employer Branding Leader at JCommerce.

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