Liverpool is known for being a lovely English city with lovely accents and two big football teams. But the Awesome Foundation is all the buzz in Liverpool. Check out this project recently submitted by B4Biodiversity and selected from an experienced bee-keeper in Bootle. You could say it’s, ahem, the bees’ knees! Give it a read below, and get inspired!

“In Liverpool, beekeeping has become very popular. I have found for many, it is the first step into learning about our wildlife.

However, despite all the good people think they are doing by owning hives, installing a hive is essentially like a factory going up, with all the resources being gleaned – e.g. pollen and nectar, to keep the factory running. This creates a huge impact on other beekeepers in the area and more importantly, on honeybees that we do not monitor as closely as honeybees.

This project will be to us an existing apiary in Bootle where I have four hives. It will be used for community groups, individuals, schools and the like to use existing hives to learn about bees, have a go at looking inside a hive, learning about which plants are good for bees and why honeybees are just as important as other bees. (The honeybee is only one type of bee out of 250 in the UK, but many people don’t know this.)

I have been approached by three different Liverpool homeschooling groups over Merseyside who are keen on getting their children to learn about bees, our own Liverpool environment and more about nature. They also want to know more about how we rely on insects, plants and trees in our everyday lives.

The project will take participants through a season of beekeeping (April – August). We will cover all the seasons; even if we start in August, we can do the rest the following year and continue on. We’ll end with a honey extraction and harvest. This is where we can taste our local landscape and see what the different forage tastes like in spring and in summer.

The existing apiary will reduce the need for hives to be installed. It will be a place where others can learn about beekeeping in a free, informative and friendly space taught by a an experienced beekeeper.”