Attica, due to its exceptional climate, hosts both honeybees and many other types of pollinating insects. There are over 1200 species of wild bees in Greece and many are endangered. The main problem wild pollinators are facing in the city is the absence of natural nesting sites.

With the program "Pollinating Athens", we take the initiative to record and highlight the entomological biodiversity of Athens, to offer nesting sites with "insect hotels" and to bring citizens experientially close to pollinating insects.

Honeybees have always existed in Athens, as evidenced by well-known toponyms (e.g. Kypseli, Melissia). Our approach is to develop urban biodiversity in a way that benefits all insect pollinators. We are not a for-profit business and for us the main goal is to raise public awareness of the problems faced by pollinators. We maintain small apiaries within the urban fabric, at reasonable distances from each other for a few months of the year, so that there is plenty of food both for our honeybees and the rest of the insects. Honey for us comes as a reward to a community that grows richer year after year. We believe that bees in the city present to us a unique opportunity to create a system that is not so much in harmony "with nature", but in harmony "as" nature.

Flowering plants and insects have a long history of co-evolution through the process of pollination. Insects help plants reproduce by carrying pollen from flower to flower and that's why we call them pollinators. The plants in turn provide them with pollen and nectar as food. Through the process of pollination, plants bear seeds and fruits and reproduce. Insect pollinators play a crucial role both in the balance of our ecosystem and in food production, as 80-90% of crops need pollination by insects. In 2019 the Earthwatch Institute announced the honeybee as the most important living being on our planet, as it is the most efficient pollinator.

In recent decades, the populations of bees and other pollinating insects have been threatened at a global level, as the balance of nature on which they based their evolution has begun to be significantly disturbed. With agriculture and animal husbandry becoming increasingly systematic and intensive over the last century, land use has changed dramatically. Widespread use of pesticides, reckless logging, deforestation for fodder cultivation and urban sprawl, forests that burn every year and are not reforested, pollution and the loss of much of the water table are just some of the factors that contribute to the extinction of bees by 90%.

We may have more cement and asphalt in the cities than in the countryside, but here there are also more of us. And where many of us are, great things can happen, starting with a change in consciousness. Although in Greece we have an amazing entomological biodiversity, no actions have yet been taken to protect it. Our goal is to familiarize ourselves with the bee and other pollinating insects in cities, which are essential for environmental balance and harmless to humans. By using the honeybee as a symbolic vehicle and means of raising awareness, we hope to start taking action to protect all pollinating insects in urban and rural areas.