We have two beehives at the garden, as part of our Bee Mindful project, which aims to teach young people about the importance of bees and other pollinators, and ways in which they can help them.
Our Bee Mindful sessions
We run educational sessions for primary school children and community groups to learn about pollination, the importance of pollinating species and how to protect them, featuring an emphasis on honey bees.
The sessions run on Fridays from 10 to11:30am. We can host groups of maximum 30 children; they are split into two groups of 15 and each group will be guided through the activities by a member of the garden staff.
The activities include designing and colouring a bee, an interactive demonstration of pollination, why pollination is important to us and other parts of the food web, how we can protect bees and other pollinating insects, a pollinator trail around the garden highlighting forage and habitat opportunities for insect pollinators, and the opportunity to taste different types of honey and experience how plant nectar influences taste.
The sessions have been devised with the National Curriculum in mind, particularly Years 3 and 6, whose study directly links to pollination.
How we look after our bees
We are natural beekeepers, which means that we are giving them somewhere safe and warm to live, but other than occasionally helping them through cold spells, we don’t interfere with the bees. We don’t take any honey or beeswax from them, and we let them swarm, which increases the amount of bees overall. We also don’t use any chemicals. At Allens Cross, we are proud to be guardian of the bees.
Book your Bee Mindful session
If you would like to book your class or group in for a Bee Mindful session, please contact us.