'Bees are crucial to our survival — should we all start keeping bees to help them thrive?'

Today is World Bee Day. Jonathan deBurca Butler speaks to beekeepers and business owners who wax lyrical about community, colonies, and conservation.

Aoife Nic Giolla Coda: “It is a small and close community. That knowledge of the bees is an ancient Irish tradition and, if I’m honest, my Dad was at the forefront of keeping it alive. He was one of the pioneers in native Irish honeybee conservation."

Bee-keeper Aoife Nic Giolla Coda says: “I used to get stung a lot when I was a child. I wasn’t even three when I got stung the first time. It’s one of my first memories. It’s fine, you get over it.” In Aoife’s case, there was little choice. 

Her father, Micheál, was maintaining generations of beekeeping family tradition, bringing his knowledge from his native Kerry to Tipperary in the 1970s.