On a rainy Saturday morning at the beginning of the summer half term, a colony of honey bees were settled into their new home in the staff quadrant at Windmill Lane. Incredibly, 10,000 bees with their queen were collected in Mr Moore’s car from an apiary in Surrey and transported to their new home. These wonderful creatures have settled in extremely well and can be seen returning to the hive throughout the day fully laden with pollen on their legs and hopefully full of nectar!

We have, of course, named them our Imberbees!

Colonies of bees within a school is becoming more commonplace as students become aware of the ecological and environmental issues that could affect their future. Keeping a hive means that as a school we contribute to the process of protecting these vital pollinators which are so crucial to our food chain -  one third of the food we eat would not be available but for bees.  Educationally the social life of the honey bee colony also provides an interesting perspective from which to consider community life and the structure of societies and so we will be incorporating this exciting new project into the curriculum for KS3 students. 

We are very much hoping that if the colony remains healthy and becomes larger we may have 'Imberhoney' as early as this Autumn. Watch this space!