We received a bit of bad news last week. Our Queen, Beeyonce, was not laying enough eggs to sustain the colony. This would mean the colony would collapse and die before winter was out.
Sadly, the decision was made to kill Beeyonce and replace her with a more productive Queen. She was killed on Friday and the hive was given 48hrs to become clear of her pheromones, otherwise the workers would kill the new Queen.
Our new Queen, Lorde, was delivered before 10.30am this morning, and hopefully, she will get straight to work.
This blog will be written from two different view points, mine and the pupils involved in the project to really give you a feeling of what has been happening since September 2014.
I had only been teaching Geography and Social Subjects at Braidhurst for a year when our Head Teacher, Mr. Hannan, approached me on the stairs with a brightly coloured leaflet in his hand. He had been at a Head Teachers’ Conference and had met my head teacher at my previous school, Mr. Sommerville. Mr. Sommerville had told him about my previous environmental projects and spotted a stall about introducing bee hives into schools. “Miss Logan would love that.”
“I’d like you to look into this Miss Logan” said Mr. Hannan. A quick e-mail to the company, Plan Bee Ltd, and we scheduled a meeting with David Craig and some other teachers from across North Lanarkshire to discuss the project in more detail.
By the end of November Warren Bader, Plan Bee’s chief Bee Keeper, had come out to the school to talk to all of our pupils about the importance of pollinating insects and what it would mean for the school to have a hive. He also set us a challenge. Our hive was plain, white and a little dull. Warren gave us 4 concepts to to draw inspiration from when designing our hive: Scottish Authors, Bannockburn 700, The Common Wealth Games 2014 and The Centenary of World War I.
Mr. Brandon and Mrs. Ballantyne, our History Teachers, had already arrange a beautiful Armistice Day tribute and were in the process of organising a Christmas Truce Football tournament, so it was felt that the World War I theme would compliment their efforts.
Some of our talented pupils dressed as WWI soldiers for the Christmas Truce Match.
Our Art department rose to the occasion magnificently, creating a whole new design unit for S2 and S3 based on a bee hive panel. The pupils’ work was really fantastic.
Some of our pupils’ work.
Every member of staff in the school received a voting slip to choose the best art work from across S2 and S3. 5 winners were chosen for the five faces of the hive. Denisa Bednarova and Zafar Khan from S2 and Nicole Collumb, Emma Ewart and Zoe Oliphant from S3 were the lucky winners. Not only did they have their art work placed on the hive, they also received a jar of Plan Bee’s delicious honey and art supplies for their efforts.
Then is was time to paint the hive…
From L-R: Denisa, Zoe, Miss Logan, Emma and Zafar with their winning designs.
Welcome to Braidhurst High School’s Bee Blog. In this blog you will find out all about the school’s apiary, our progress and the importance of pollinating insects like honey bees.
The Bee Hive Project was started in September 2014 thanks to the generosity of David Craig and North Lanarkshire Council. In that time a group of pupils (and a very nervous teacher) have gone from confusing honey bees with wasps to full time bee keeping. Without the help of the lovely Warren Bader of Plan Bee Ltd this project would not have been possible. Please feel free to browse our posts and galleries, make comments or ask questions. Pop over to Plan Bee’s website too to see how they are leading the way in improving biodiversity throughout Scotland.
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