When two colonies of honey bees descended on Buchanan and St Ambrose High School, the teacher’s first reaction was not one of concern for the pupils but of excitement….
The bees, living in hives supplied by Lanarkshire based bio-diversity champions Plan Bee, are part of the Green Legacy Schools project to teach pupils about the importance of the environment and get involved in the various ways to improve Scotland’s biodiversity.
Back in May, Plan Bee arrived with the hives -happily sponsored by construction giants Balfour Beatty who built the school- and along with the pupils and teachers enjoyed a thoroughly rewarding first season at the school.
The pupils have been incredibly enthusiastic in learning about the bees and bee keeping and Plan Bee were thoroughly impressed with their lack of fear.
The pupils have been engaging in lessons about the various stages of bee-keeping and will be involved in a competition with other North Lanarkshire Schools to come up with their own bee related song or poem as well as using their entrepreneurial skills in harvesting and marketing their very own honey by early next year.
The involved teachers have also been wonderfully supportive, Christine King and Elizabeth Denton happily admitted that they were often-times more keen to get into their bee-keeper outfits than the pupils!
This season also saw a new Scottish queen, ‘Queen Christina’ rather fittingly introduced to the hive, giving the pupils the unique chance to see such an event but Elizabeth wasn’t too left out, after all we already have one Queen Elizabeth!
The new additions have certainly created quite the buzz on campus and Buchanan and St Ambrose as well as the other five North Lanarkshire Schools about to embark on the project, are very much looking forward to seeing their hives thrive.
