The sweetest thing
By John Beavan, head beekeeper at Paradise
With more than half a million bees now calling Paradise home, the estate is creating more than its fair share of fresh, local honey each and every autumn.
Recent visits to the hives located close to Great Charles Street have allowed Paradise occupiers and their staff the opportunity to find out more about the beekeeping process and to learn about how our essential pollinators do what they do.
Showing people around the hives and getting them to interact with the bees in person is hugely rewarding and helps all of us understand our place within nature.
Our bees are part of Paradise now, and everyone who works at or visits the development can find out more about the vital job bees carry out and their role at the heart of many ecosystems, including urban ones.
Without bees, our lives would be very different – and our food staples much more expensive. Bees carry out an essential job in pollinating most plants that we use for food. The fact they then produce honey as a by-product gives us another wonderful food thanks to them.
Renowned for their hard work, resilience and determination, bees can fly up to three miles to forage and hives the size of those at Paradise see the bees fly the equivalent of travelling to the moon and back every day.
This year, the extraction process – when honey is taken from the honeycomb from inside the bee’s hives – will allow more than 250 jars of honey to be distributed to clients and occupiers across the estate.
We are now seeing – and tasting – the fruit of the bees’ labours. Many staff who work at Paradise have been able to take part in extraction sessions when we separate the honey and put it into jars. It’s a quick and simple process that allows an instantly useable foodstuff to go out to local restaurants and cafes as well as our occupiers.
Local honey is not just good for the end user, it also generates interest in this purely natural process while creating a high quality, organic foodstuff.
Long may our bees continue to make a difference to our corner of the city centre!