Creating a Buzz for World Bee Day - An Post launches Native Irish Bee Stamps

To celebrate World Bee Day, today Monday 20^th May, An Post has released a series of beautiful honeycomb-shaped stamps celebrating four native Irish bees. The stamps are available now at selected post offices and at anpost.com/shop in several formats to delight bee fans and nature lovers.

This buzzworthy collection of four stamps features:

1. The pretty Moss Carder Bee, depicted on a red clover, which is blonde in colour. It generally inhabits flower-rich coastal dunes and grasslands, bogs, and parkland, gathering moss to line its underground nest. As its habitats are shrinking, numbers are declining precipitously.
2. The Honey Bee has been central to bee-keeping for at least 2000 years, it is shown with a nectar-rich blackberry flower. It has distinctive dark colouration, darkly-pigmented wings, and abundant thoracic hair.
3. The Patchwork Leafcutter Bee uses leaf pieces to create a thimble-like structure inside the nest. The female fills this with nectar and pollen, wherein she lays a single egg.
4. The Wool Carder Bee, with distinctive yellow markings, was first sighted in Ireland in 2015. The female uses fibrous leaf-hairs to line her nest, while the males are fiercely territorial.

A miniature sheet and First Day Cover miniature sheet are also creating extra buzz around this stamp issue. The beautiful bee in the corner of the First Day Cover is the Tawny Mining Bee, one of Ireland’s most endearing solitary bees. Thought to be extinct in Ireland for eighty-seven years, it was rediscovered in 2012.

 

A gorgeous miniature sheet features the Great Yellow Bumblebee, one of our most endangered bees and a special philatelic treat comes in the form of a First Day Cover miniature sheet, featuring the Red-tailed Bumblebee.

Announcing the launch of the stamps, Nicola Woods, Chief Transformation Officer at An Post said: “Bees are essential pollinating species and this beautiful collection of four limited-edition stamps is a celebration of the wonderful work bees do for our environment. We hope these stamps remind people of the importance of biodiversity and encourage them to add some natural beauty to their cards and letters.”

Biodiversity has been a huge area of focus for An Post. These special stamps follow on from An Post’s No Mow May campaign in 2023 with the National Biodiversity Data Centre, which was hugely successful in bringing the topic of biodiversity into 2.3million homes across the country.  Also, in 2023 An Post restored over 6,500m2 of land banks through the planting of wildflower meadows and native tree and hedgerow species. This was part of the organisation’s commitment to designating 100% of available land to biodiversity activities which support and protect endangered species by 2030.

 

2023 also saw An Post relocate an entire hive of native black bees that had built their home in an unused post box.  The bees are now safely rehomed in a FIBKA (The Federation of Irish Beekeepers Association) site with a selection of the queen cells taken for genetic breeding to help restore the declining populations of this vital native species.

 

Commenting on this rehoming  Rosie O’Neill, Sustainability Manager at An Post added: “One of the most exciting biodiversity projects I worked on last year involved the rehoming of an entire hive of bees who had made their home in a disused post box. While we were happy to accommodate our bee friends we were ultimately concerned for their safety and the public. We worked with the Federation of Irish Beekeepers Association to safely rehome them in a safe site, where they are still living happily. Protecting native species is crucial to prevent hybridisation with non-native species and to support essential pollinators. Keeping biodiversity and the wider environment in our constant dialogue is essential in finding more opportunities to support the ecosystems which in turn support us.”