CLYDE SHOPPING CENTRE TO PROVIDE LOCAL SCHOOL & NURSERY CHILDREN WITH EDUCATIONAL HONEYBEE VISITS
Having taken possession of Two beehives recently, supplied by sustainable honey company, Webster Honey, Clyde Shopping Centre in Clydebank has spoken of how they are helping the Centre achieve many of the objectives in its innovative Clyde Eco Project.
This sees the workforce at Clyde Shopping Centre engage directly into the local community by providing several focused activities for children, including local school & nursery visits to check out the hives, and to see the Centre’s recycling facilities. They are also planning to create an Eco trail visit within the Centre’s landscaping area with six raised beds planting vegetables, sensory plants and wildflowers. This area can also be enjoyed by the bees who will find it a rich source of pollen.
“We are delighted to have our bees, which seem to be settling in well,” said Centre Manager, Andrew Forrester. “Having hives here, which the children can visit and learn about, is a fantastic addition to our Eco Project itinerary. It gives us another learning focus for the children, along with topics such as recycling, which is also very important to the environment nowadays.” Andrew explained that the Centre had hives on its roof before which were self managed by Centre staff. When covid struck it was no longer possible for the hives to be tended correctly. “We heard about Webster Honey through another Shopping Centre which had also got hives on its roof,” said Andrew. “This appealed to us as Webster Honey manage and look after the hives, and additionally can provide this really important engagement aspect where their beekeeper will come along and do a workshop type activity with either school children or adults who are interested in finding out more about the lifecycle of bees and what they can do to help preserve bees and their habitat
“We’re looking forward to the first school visits which should be in the new school term,” said Andrew. “We’ve also had interest from a few Nurseries.” “At the moment we have not looked into potentially selling the honey we get from the hives here in the Centre, but we may well consider this for the future, as demand is high for locally sourced artisan products.”
For further details on how Webster Honey works with businesses all over Scotland who want to support sustainable honey, and have a hive at their premises, please visit https://www.websterhoney.com/bees-and-your-business/
For Schools & Nurseries who would like to sign up for a ten week lesson plan, it’s https://www.websterhoney.com/school-classes/