Our sustainability team work hard to reduce the University’s impact on the environment, but a project which picked up pace over the summer months is almost unbeelievable.

Nestled in a quiet corner of Holywell Park, a project is making quite the buzz. Five members of University staff are working together to manage a campus apiary, which has ramped up in size from a single hive in 2012, to 6 flourishing colonies in the summer of 2015. With each colony housing up to 50,000 – that’s a lot of honeybees!

An apiary manager takes a stroll among the hives

Recently, numbers have shown that honeybee population nationwide has dropped 15% over the past two seasons, so this project is a really important part of supporting local bees. Jo Shields, Sustainability Manager and keen beekeeper, said “1 in 3 mouthfuls of food we eat is reliant on bee pollination so from a sustainability point of view it makes sense that we do everything we can to protect bees and help them thrive.”

University beekeepers and a member of the community tries to find the Queen in a new hive.

“It’s a bonus to take some honey and not the main reason we keep the bees here at Loughborough” – but a delicious bonus nonetheless! Last year the team harvested 20kg of ‘Loughborough Gold’ honey, and where else to process it but the Towers Hall kitchens?! Unfortunately this season due to bad weather there was no excess honey, and one of the hives very nearly starved, so there will be no honey crop this year.

Some of Loughborough’s 2014 honey haul

Looking to the future, the aim of the campus apiary is education. Jo and the team want to spread the word about the plight of the bees, and how we can do more to protect these important creatures.

Find out more on the sustainability website and keep in touch with their monthly newsletters: http://bit.ly/1KtQ7nF