University of Gloucestershire's New Bee Guardian Role

The University of Gloucestershire has joined forces with the Global Bee Project in a bid to help thousands of solitary bees survive and prosper on its land.
University of Gloucestershire Bee HiveA specially built bee house will provide 1,500 solitary bees with accommodation at The Park campus, while another will be sited at the Edible Garden in Francis Close Hall. In addition the Students’ Union Allotment Society is installing two portable bee houses in an apple tree at its site on Midwinter Allotments.
With no hive or queen to protect, solitary bees are not aggressive and present no real risk of stinging to people using the sites.
The University has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Stroud-based Global Bee Project, and is looking forward to working with them in developing habitats and providing educational opportunities on and off site.
The partnership was initiated by Dr Adam Hart, senior lecturer and course leader in biosciences at the University of Gloucestershire, who is an expert in social insects.
“Honeybees are getting all the attention right now but there are many other species of bee that don’t live in hives and don’t make honey that are incredibly important pollinators. These solitary bees need our help, and helping them is very straightforward.” said Dr Hart.
The University works with 40 Compact Schools in and around the county, who have all been invited to come and see the bee house for themselves and find out about opportunities to become Bee Guardians.
Solitary bees differ from honeybees and bumblebees in that they do not live in colonies headed by a queen.
The Global Bee Project was launched in 2009. Based in Stroud, it is encouraging individuals and organisations to become Bee Guardians, raising awareness of the plight of all bees and encouraging communities to help them thrive.
The large bee house at Park has been hand built by directors Carlo Montesanti and Jessie Jowers, who spent two weeks routing the cavities ready for the bees to move in.
Another hand-made bee house, supported by the St Paul's Road Area Residents Association, has been sited in the Edible Garden at Francis Close Hall.
The Students’ Union Allotment Society are putting two smaller bee houses in an apple tree at their Midwinter Allotment site, while the Global Bee Project is keen to place more bee houses in schools around the area.
Managing director Jessie Jowers said: "We are very pleased to establish the University of Gloucestershire as the first official Bee Guardian University. We hope that it will be the first of many educational centres around the world to become aware of the importance of all bee species and to encourage and protect the wild bees on their land. The University has done this fantastically by setting up the bee houses for cavity nesting bees, as well as creating safe havens to establish wildflowers, which are an essential resource of pollen and nectar for the foraging bees."
This is not the first time bees have been invited onto University grounds, with a Rural Science course offering students the chance to work with beehives at St Paul’s College (now Francis Close Hall) during the 1950s, as well as caring for chickens.
To find out more about the Global Bee Project, visit www.theglobalbeeproject.com

University of Gloucestershire
The Park
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 2RH

Telephone 0844 801 0001
www.glos.ac.uk 

Source: University of Gloucestershire