How does the campaign work?
Leeds City College's School of Animal Care & Land Management were lucky enough to secure some funding form Skills and Education Group and it was used to buy beehives and equipment needed to rehoming a coloney of bees being housed on the roof of our Park Lane campus.
We have been busy getting our learners involved in building new hives and expanding to add an apiary near Rose Lodge at Temple Newsam. The team and our learners have also been working with Leeds Bee Keeping Association to help them build beehive stands and move some bees around their apiary.
Our vison for the bees at Temple Newsam, is to allow them to create a perminate safe home. Where learners and staff at Leeds City College can become reaquainted with nature and all it has to offer .
Where does your money go?
Bees have such an important part to play in maintaining our planet. We need bees to pollinate the food we need to survive, grow the economy and sustain jobs and many of the trees and flowers that provide habitats for lots of other wildlife. Because of habitat loss, climate change, invasive species and in particular parasites and disease, there are little to no wild honey bee colonies in the UK.
To help increase the number of wild honey bee colonies and bring our vision to life, we are working towards hosting wellbeing afternoons where bee suits and equippment will be provided. People will be able to book on to come inspect our hives, learn about bees and have a taste of fresh honey, with the team at Temple Newsam.
At the moment we only have one hive of bees (the surviving bees from Park Lane) but to make this vision a reality we'll need to buy four nucs (about four frames of bees with a laying queen).
A nuc of bees costs £165 and we need a minimum of 3 and all the donations will go towards bringing this vision alive!