School has a buzz about it!
Honey from hive to jar in bee project
An innovative project which saw bee hives installed at Trinity High School has seen a strong colony form and 48 jars of honey produced.
The Rutherglen school welcomed two bee hives and 80,000 bees to its eco garden in April as the first school in South Lanarkshire to pilot a beekeeping project.
The insects have since created a strong colony, with its growing population of 150,000 pollinating local plants and producing golden honey.
Honeycombs from the hives were removed by PlanBee Limited - the company helping to monitor the hives - earlier this month.
Maths teacher Colin McIntyre is chairman of Trinity High’s eco group and is the driving force behind the beehive initiative.
“We got 48 jars of honey and are hoping for more,” he said. “It’s coming to the end of the season and PlanBee says we may get more from the hives by the end of the summer.
“They say we have a very strong colony, there are 150,000 bees in total between the two hives now so we have a great population.”
Several S2 students at the school were lucky enough to see the honey production from hive to jar.
The youngsters - finalists in the competition to design a label for the honey - travelled to the factory where the honey comb was added to a machine which extracted and collected the honey in sterilised containers before being added to jars.
The bee project has been a key addition to the Trinity High ecogarden and the school hopes it will go some way to addressing the UK’s falling bee population.
Mr McIntyre added: “It’s great to see how successful it has been.
“Staff and pupils have got a lot from witnessing the process. To see the bees thriving in their environment, and, obviously we know how important the honey bee is for the environment, it’s good to know we’re doing our bit in the local area.”
The bees will go into hibernation over the winter and prepare the hive for honey production in 2018, with experts hopeful more tiers could be added to boost honey production next year.
The eco-garden and bee project have been made possible thanks to support from PlanBee Ltd, who provided the bees, and SGN which provided a grant for works to be completed to the eco-garden.