Accessible beekeeping is coming to The Bee Team!

As you know, we love our bees at Heron Hill! 
But for a while now, we have wanted to make our apiary and hives more accessible to even more of our children &  the groups who visit. 
Our National hives are super, but they are heavy, (especially when full of up to 20kg of honey!) The hives fit together a little like the 'Jenga' game you may have seen, each tier/box resting on the next, meaning we have to do quite a lot of lifting! 
Green Earth Hive company specialise in hives for children & people with mobility problems and we were delighted when they asked would we trial one of their new 'Long Hives' for them!
So this week, Matt and Dean delivered our new hive and spent a super afternoon showing it to some of the children. 

The hive has one roof, easily opened by the children, with space in the Long Hive to accommodate several colonies of bees in a variety of different configurations. The children will be able to see right inside the hive, as they have made it the perfect height...topping it off with perspex covers to allow inspection without disturbing the girls!

Green Earth Hives also brought an Observation Hive for us to look at. They then helped the children plan and design their own ideas for the perfect indoor hive! We had some amazing ideas! The children considered noise, light and materials in their designs, some even colour coding the temperature requirements of the bees at various times of year! 
Matt & Dean have taken the drawings away with them and we will be working with them over the winter to bring the ideas to life in our own observation hive! Watch this space!!