Bee Collective

I was lucky enough to be invited to the launch of an excellent project this week - the Bee Collective. Based a stone's throw from Victoria Station and sponsored by the Victoria Business Improvement District, the project is the brainchild of Caroline Birchall, who works at Natural England on landscape ecology in the capital.

Caroline Birchall introduces the project

At the heart of the project is a cooperative honey extraction facility. Honey extraction is a messy business and requires a large and expensive piece of kit, so many bee keepers struggle to extract their own honey at home. The Bee Collective facility allows London beekeepers to extract the golden stuff in return for a share of the honey, or money if they prefer.

The extraction facility

And here's the best bit - in collaboration with Capital Bee, the project aims to promote the creation of areas of bee forage in the capital. So when you extract your honey, you know you are supporting additional habitat for your bees.

Home on the Range

 

Thanks to the wonder of Twitter, we heard about a place called Sussex Prairies, near Henfield. It sounded like just the kind of place we enjoy, so on Sunday we headed out there. And we weren't disappointed! 

The sight that greeted us

Only planted in May 2008 by owners Paul and Pauline McBride, the site comprises 6 acres of borders and sculptures surrounded by mature trees, with glimpses of the South Downs beyond.

We've always been fans of this informal, naturalistic style of planting, but one thing we wanted to check out was - just how good are these plants for bees?

A sea of Rudbeckia

 Turns out they're fantastic! Some of the plants we saw were absolutely dripping with pollinators; the Veronicastrums were almost a health hazard, there were so many honey bees.

Pale Echinaceas with a splash of pink

Now this I love! Kniphofia and fennel - what a colour combination

 Anybody looking to work out the best plants for bees could do an awful lot worse than spending an hour wandering around Sussex Prairies with a notebook. A truly inspiring garden.

Drifts of Lythrum salicaria and Verbena bonariensis

Just stunning...

Monet goes to college

Now, we wouldn't normally recommend sowing seeds at this time of year, but this was an exceptional project. The University of Sussex want some areas of pollinator-friendly vegetation in the heart of the campus, and were poised to go ahead with no delay (I do so love a greenspace manager who says, 'Yes - let's do it. Now!). 

Oh to have the right kit for the job! This cuts, scarifies, rolls, cultivates...

Not wanting to disappoint, we have suggested sowing our 'Monet' mix as a stop-gap; being mainly poppies, it will hopefully germinate quickly and give us a show of colour in the Indian summer we are undoubtedly in for next month (ahem). The sites will then be there and reasonably weed-free so we can do some more ambitious seed-sowing in spring of next year.

Lovely tilth!

So, fingers crossed for us - we need a little bit of rain (not too much; during the night would be fine) and some nice warm days for the next three weeks or so. Even though the students are technically off on holiday, we still got lots of expressions of interest and support from passers-by.

Andy Jupp, of the Uni of Sussex, mixes seeds with sand

Doing the hand-jive?

Hive Aid

Isn't that a brilliant name for a bee event? Hive Aid - wish I'd thought of that! But I didn't - it was someone at Hanover Action for Sustainable Living, a great group of folks in a corner of Brighton, who organised an event yesterday to increase awareness of the plight of our bees.

I volunteered to give a talk on Wildlife Gardening for Pollinators, and headed down to Brighton in the afternoon. A terrible journey, starting with a road closure in Lindfield due to an accident and culminating in me getting horribly lost in the back streets of Brighton (I don't do Brighton by car, OK? I just don't). But I eventually stumbled upon the Hanover Community Centre, adorned with much bee-related artwork, and joined the fun.

The Hanover is a lovely little centre with an outside yard surrounded by a small garden, which includes a 'green wall'. There were stalls where you could make bee nest boxes and seed bombs, an observation hive, bee-friendly plants and some excellent face-painting.

The green wall

A lady called Heather gave a talk covering the life cycle and habits of bees, and I followed on with my presentation, to a good sized crowd of very attentive people, many of whom came up to speak to me afterwards. I even sold a few packets of FlowerScapes seeds.

All in all a lovely event - many thanks to Mei-Wah and Robyn for making me feel so welcome.