A new club could be formed at the Waitaki Community Gardens in Oamaru to encourage people to breed and keep bees.
The Bee Club follows a premiere of the film Queen of the Sun in Oamaru.
The film raised about $1000 to go towards establishing the club, gardens co-ordinator Annie Beattie said yesterday.
The film looks at the global crisis of a diminishing bee population and its effects.
Ms Beattie said anyone interested in helping form the club could attend a public meeting on June 10 at 5.30pm at the North Otago Club. Funding would be sought for protective clothing.
A bee house could be built at the gardens to store equipment. Volunteers could build hives.
The club would encourage young people to become involved by having hobby apiarists as mentors, she said.
Other clubs existed in New Zealand for both hobbyists and apiarists.
Ms Beattie said having the club and hives at the gardens for education would be "brilliant", along with providing bees to pollinate fruit trees and other plants there and in the adjacent Oamaru Public Gardens.
