Wednesday 20 June 2012
A colony of honey bees now live on Newton building's roof!
A small number of our new honey bees
The Newton building’s new roof-top residents have arrived! A colony of 10,000 honey bees have been transferred into a modern hive, especially designed to help the colony grow stronger. These new residents now mean that NTU has bee hives on all its three campuses.
The hive
The plastic-shelled hive with traditional wooden frames inside, provides a robust shelter for the bees and helps the colony to settle. The hive has an inspection platform for varroa mites, which is a very common cause of death in bees. If this colony is successful it can ultimately reach a number of about 80,000 bees.
Bees at Clifton campus
The City site hive was the last addition to the apiary of hives throughout our three campuses. The Clifton campus’ bee hive is located near the Crime Scene Investigation House, and is owned by the School of Science and Technology. They use the bee hive for academic research to monitor how the bee’s buzzing helps the swarming process.
Bees at Brackenhurst campus
At Brackenhurst campus the apiary is located over the main road, opposite Bramley building. They are owned and managed by the Nottinghamshire Beekeepers Association.
Comment from Grant Anderson, NTU Environment Manager
Grant Anderson, Environment Manager, said: "We are very pleased to have honey bees on all our campuses, especially at City and Clifton as these are city-based campuses. It’s quite a privilege to have them in urban areas and it will be interesting to see how the city bees develop compared to the Brackenhurst ones, whether the city centre environment will have a different impact on them."
New bee cam
NTU will be introducing a bee cam so staff and students can get an insight into life inside the hive and witness the activity of these highly intelligent creatures. If lucky, you might even get to see their famed ‘waggle dance’. Bees perform the waggle dance to tell each other where the best sources of nectar and pollen can be found.
Read more about the honey bees on EcoWeb.
