Four of our founding Bee Team members travelled to London this week to be presented with the 'Bees' Needs Champions Award' 
What an experience for four of our founding Bee Team children! Over the last 3 years they have worked weekends and holidays to care for our bees...even visited other schools to teach them about bees & beekeeping, so it was only fitting that these children represented school to collect our 'Bees' Needs Champions Award' for their contribution to beekeeping and encouraging pollinators in school. 

It was a long but wonderful day, leaving Kendal at 6.20 am to get to 'Carna'bee' Street in London to receive our award from Lord Gardiner the Under Secretary of State for the Environment & George McGavin, TV entomologist & environmental champion.  The children then had opportunity to work with The University of Reading, investigating how much of our food is pollinated by bees... They made seed bombs to bring back to school and gave their expert opinion in a honey tasting session!  
  It was then off to the Houses of Parliament to meet with Tim Farron, where we passed on a petition about Climate Change and spoke to him about plastic waste. The children presented him with some of their 'beeswax wraps' made with our bee's wax, part of a project they are running in school to reduce plastic waste with the help of our bees!  We had tea on the terrace and Mr Farron even sneaked us into watch a live debate in the House of Commons!  It was amazing!

It was a super day, the children were wonderful ambassadors for school and for beekeeping, we were so very proud of them all and incredibly thankful to Kendal Beekeepers and James from Virgin Trains for their support in making it all happen!  Thank you everyone! 

Our 'buzzy' bee week continued today, with the last 'Advanced bee team' session of this year... and a special 'birth' in Year 4!
Year 4 were amazed to watch a Queen cell 'hatch' in front of their eyes in class! The Queen cells had been cut out of a hive in our 'out apiary' & brought in for the children to see... While the children were asking questions about the cells... one Queen began to emerge! To say we were a little bit excited, is an understatement!    This new Queen has now been placed in an Apidea, a mini hive containing nurse bees to look after her every need!  Hopefully her new mini 'family' will expand to be a full sized colony next year. 

The advanced team used their fabulous queen spotting skills to find an elusive new queen in a nucleus hive, quickly spotted by Poppy, then expertly marked by Mason!  Although this was the last advanced bee team session of the year, these dedicated beekeepers will be back during the summer holidays to care for our bees. 
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Mrs Harper and I were incredibly excited to go over to the Lancaster University Eco Hub this week, where along with Dr Phil Donkersly & Dr Mazza, both eminent professors working in bee and pollinator research, we will be collaborating on a piece of unique research into pollination over the Heron Hill school site and University.  This pilot 'Citizens Science' project is centred around our children doing real 'hands on scientific research' with the University, visiting their site, having valuable lessons from the professors on microscopy, apiculture and pollination.. At the end of the project, they will feed back their data and findings to a panel of scientists from the world of bees!   It is an amazing opportunity for us as a school and the children, we will keep you posted when the project commences in the Autumn. 
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Bee Musical, extraction, beeswax wraps & drone culling... what a bee day!

Today we covered just about everything practical!  The 'new-bees' (fuelled by some smashing bee shaped bee shortbread, thank you Corey!) Extracted our first lot of Heron Hill Honey... Mr Tett, our beekeeping buddy is taking it to The Great Yorkshire Show soon for our entry into their prestigious honey show. So fingers crossed, we will keep you posted!
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As part of our Integrated Pest Management to control the dreaded Varroa mite in the hives, we cull some of the drone brood to count the mites present... It is a horrible job to do, but the best and only way mid season to see if the level of Varroa in the hives is below the level to cause harm to the bees....Any Varroa is bad news as they spread nasty viruses which can harm and kill our bees, so Varroa management forms a central part of how we care for our bees. helping us keep our bees healthy. 
The children were AMAZING today... They used an uncapping fork to 'pull out' the drone brood where they checked each larvae for evidence of mites. 

Though not a bee team production...Year 3&4 performed the most wonderful Bee Musical today... I can quite honestly say it was the most amazing show!! Not only did every child sing, act and dance their hearts out, but so many important mesages were shared about the plight of bees were shared with the audience... Well done, superb!!

You may remember last year we signed up to submit our honey for sampling as part of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Honey Monitoring Scheme.

The scheme analyses honey samples from apiaries all over the country to gather information using advanced analytical techniques to identify the species of plant pollen present in honey samples. This will tell the CEH what bees are feeding on in different parts of the country and at different times of year. This information will help them identify possible threats to bees linked with floral resources.  

Our results are really interesting, firstly showing our honey is just about perfect in regard to concentration of sugars and water, (a sign of quality!) It also shows exactly in a 2km radius of school, our bees preferred sites and forage.  So here are the forage areas in summary...

The chart shows that a large proportion of our bees forage comes from Suburban areas, ie, all the children's gardens around school!  The other large area is classified as 'Improved grassland' that means managed fields and land, so that could mean areas where pesticides have been used, had lime applied or fertiliser... 
When we look at the areas surrounding school, we have a cricket ground, football pitches and parks, all areas where the land is intensively & actively managed. 
It is great to see the bees are using the local woodland including our wood to gain valuable year round forage. 

When the scheme looked at plant species, over 25 different plants were seen to be 'favourites' for our girls! Top of the list was White Clover, with over 60% of the bees vote! Next up, Bramble. 
This really shows how important 'wild and natural' areas are, not just to our bees, but all pollinators.  We will be looking closely at the rest of the results and will of course share them...

It is almost time for this years sample... I wonder what difference a year will make in the honey and the landscape available to our bees...?   Hopefully our new wildflower area will feature in next years results!!

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After experiencing 'summer' in February... our bees have had a rough time recently with rain, rain and more rain...  
The early mild weather, followed by lots of rain has made foraging difficult...and at a time when the Queens are laying up to 1,500 eggs a day, that quickly results in a LOT of new mouths to feed! Bees all over the country have been on the verge of starvation, with the National Bee Unit issuing starvation warnings to check all colonies for stores. 
We have been feeding all our colonies for almost 3 weeks now, with some needing more than others, but fingers crossed, with ??summer now having arrived, the bees are out and about foraging on all the wonderful local flowers. 
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One of the best things about bee club, is how our children get a real appreciation and interest in all nature, not just our honeybees. 
Once again, Mr Tett, our beekeeping buddy came along to help the children create more exciting ways to encourage wildlife in and around our school grounds.
This week, hedgehogs had their turn!  
After finishing the 'new abode' the boys painted the hive and helped Mr Tett place the house in an established hedgehog run along the school boundary.   We are delighted to report, that after only a day in position, there was lots of 'evidence' that the 'hogs' had been in to have a good look around... Hopefully this 'hog house' will provide a safe and warm place to hibernate over the winter. 

As you may remember, Kendal beekeepers & our bee teams prepared a large 'mini meadow' to sow a new wild flower area...
3 months later the results are super and the bees are loving it! 
We have a lot of Rape in there...which wasn't sown...but the bees & pollinators love it! We have Borage, Nigella and Geranium everywhere, it is looking and buzzing brilliantly!
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Heron Hill School Beekeeping is now on the map again, helped by Defra coming along today to video and interview the children. They are using the footage, not only promote 'bees' needs week,' but to educate and enthuse children & young people 'get out there into the outdoors' learn about nature, bees and the environment. 
Over the course of the day, our children from Y1-Y6 were interviewed and filmed as they passed on their amazing skills and knowledge to the film crew from Defra. 
We were SO proud of our beekeeping school today...!  Not only did we have our youngest children sharing their bee knowledge and enthusiasm... I think I watched the 'most perfect' hive inspection carried out by our talented Advanced Bee Team... Well done Heron Hill Bee people!

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A wonderful day for our Junior Certificate candidates as they took their exam under the watchful eye of Mrs Viki Cuthbertson, Master Beekeeper from the BBKA!

The children had worked so hard over the past year, keeping a detailed beekeeping diary and doing a bee themed project. 
Their knowledge was evident in the oral exam, where they answered (tough) questions on a whole manner of beekeeping subjects from Swarming to Varroa management. 
Next was showing the examiner their hive inspection skills... something I was particularly proud of them for, they all examined their colonies with respect, calm handling and care... wonderful to watch.  The results will be released in 4-6 weeks, but Mrs Cuthbertson was 'very impressed with their level of skill and knowledge' Fingers crossed, we will keep you informed!
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