As part of our commitment to giving something back to nature, we’ve given home to over 300,000 honeybees in the grounds of our venues.
Preserving the bees
Responsible for pollinating a third of the UK’s food supply, bees are sadly in decline and we wanted to do something to help preserve them.
With both of our venues based in rural, conservation areas, and with over 50 acres between them, there could be no better place for the bees to live, and to thrive. As they go about their work, they help to make our venues even more productive and industrious than they are already.
Here are 10 things you may not know about these fascinating creatures…
1. Bees live in colonies with other bees and they work in cooperation with each other.
2. Bees not only make honey. They pollinate flowers and plants which helps develop a thriving natural environment for fruit and vegetables to grow.
3. Bees use the sun and other landmarks to find their way.
4. A bee has five eyes and can even see ultra violet light.
5. Bees have special ‘baskets’ made of stiff, curving hairs on their back legs to carry the pollen back to the hive.
6. Bees survive the winter by eating stored honey and keeping warm with other bees.
7. Bees use a 'waggle' dance to show other bees where to find a food source.
8. Bees have an expert sense of smell. They can differentiate hundreds of different floral varieties and tell whether a flower carries pollen or nectar from metres away.
9. A bee flies to thousands of flowers to make just one spoonful of honey.
10. A bee's brain is only about the size of a sesame seed, yet it has remarkable capacity to learn and remember things. It is able to make complex calculations on distance travelled and foraging efficiency.
