A SCOTS shopping centre is hoping to provide local schools and nurseries with educational visits after taking possession of four beehives.
Clyde Shopping Centre in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, were supplied with the hives by sustainable honey company Webster Honey.
The Centre has now spoken of how the hives are helping them achieve many of the objectives in its innovative Clyde Eco Project.
The Clyde Eco Project sees the workforce at the shopping centre engage directly with the local community by providing several focused activities for children, including local school and 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 as a rich source of pollen.
Centre Manager Andrew Forrester said: “We are delighted to have our bees, which seem to be settling in well.
“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, but 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.
“Webster Honey manage and look after the hives, and additionally their beekeeper will come along and do a workshop 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.”
Andrew added: “We’re looking forward to the first school visits which should be in the new school term.
“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.”
