If you’re going to be a bee, you’re gonna want to do it in Tel Aviv.

That’s because the Israeli coastal municipality has made a commitment to preserve the lives of local bees through a partnership with one of Israel’s coolest volunteer organizations, Magen Dvorim Adom (Association of Red Bee Protection, but also a play on Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency response network).

Magen Dvorim Adom operates a special hotline which dispatches a bee relocation expert to move swarms of bees that have made their way to pesky places.

When the trained volunteers arrive, the first order of business is to find the queen of the hive and then move the whole clan somewhere that isn’t your back porch or car window — a professional hive, a hospitable home or some other natural habitat.

This is precisely what the Ben Attar family did in early November, when 23,000 bees chose the balcony of the family’s Tel Aviv apartment as their new place to live, laugh and buzz.

After a quick call to Magen Dvorim Adom, the entire hive was relocated to one of the dozens of bee nesting boxes that the municipality has set up as part of its efforts to preserve its pollinators.

No buzzkill in Tel Aviv

“The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality does not carry out bee extermination. When a report of a bee swarm is received, we first assess if and how it can be saved,” explains Yuval Schab, the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo’s Coordinator for Animal Communities and Biodiversity. “So far, in all cases brought to our attention, we have always found a solution that preserves the bees’ lives.”

This move is certainly wise, considering how important bees are and how they seem to keep dying every time you look away to check your watch.

Bees are crucial pollinators, with honeybees responsible for pollinating about 75 percent of our food crops (which is actually just a really nice side effect of them gathering pollen for their young).

But honeybee populations are declining due to multiple threats including disease, pesticides and poor weather conditions. This decline poses a serious challenge for food security as the global population grows.

That’s why Tel Aviv’s new policy is a welcome one, and  why there’s an active contingent of the startup nation dedicated to keeping bees alive and well.

Magan Dvorim Adom has also established three Bee Freedom Farms in Israel for relocated bees, where the insects can live freely without human interference, help heal nature and educate visiting schoolchildren.

For more information, click here.

Originally posted on israel21c.org