Bees buzzing their way to Paradise

By Chief Bee Keeper, John Beavan

Paradise Birmingham has welcomed 80,000 new occupants – in the shape of its own bee colonies, housed in two traditional hives.

The bees will be a first for Paradise and will occupy the hives, which are located close to the existing hoarding at the corner of Congreve Street and Great Charles Street.

The bees will not be in and around the public areas of the development in large numbers, so those who are nervous of insects need not fear.

The hives are being installed as part of an ecology-led initiative to bring more wildlife to the development and encourage a greater diversity of insects in this part of the city centre.

As well as being home to our own bee colony, the hives will produce our own Paradise honey every year which we will collect and make available to local people and businesses.

We have no doubt the bees will enjoy their home in Paradise and will be able to find plenty of pollen and food by foraging in nearby public spaces like Victoria Square, Cathedral Square, St Paul’s Square and City Centre gardens as well as along the city’s canals.

As well as the 80,000 worker bees, the two hives will each have their own Queen bee who relies on the worker bees to bring her food and water and see to all her needs. But while the Queen tends to stay put in the hive for her entire lifespan, the workers can fly in a three mile radius, foraging and collecting nectar that can gets condensed into honey.

Without bees and their ability to pollinate plants, including crops, fruit and vegetables we all need for our food, it would cost the agricultural sector in the UK alone £2 billion a year to pollinate artificially.

 

(L-R): Mukesh Puri, Avison Young; Caroline Rudge, Paradise Birmingham; and Justin Sherratt, Avison Young. All are wearing bee keepers outfits, standing near the bee hives at Paradise Birmingham.
(L-R): Mukesh Puri, Avison Young; Caroline Rudge, Paradise Birmingham; and Justin Sherratt, Avison Young.

Worker bees rightly have an awesome reputation for hard work.

The bees in the Paradise colony will collectively fly the equivalent of travelling to the moon and back every day. Their top speed is 20mph and they have the navigational prowess of much larger animals thanks to their ability to sense the position of the sun even on a cloudy or rainy day, and their sensitivity to the Earth’s magnetic field.

Birmingham city centre presents some plentiful sources of pollen and visitors to places like Victoria Square may see a few more bees on local plants, but overall the number of bees in Birmingham will not be greatly affected by the new arrivals. After all, there are some 1.6 billion bees in the UK, with up to 30 million in Birmingham alone.

As Caroline Rudge, Asset Manager at Paradise, sums up:

 

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