Henlow Church of
England Academy

Bee Blog July 2024

At the time of writing, our Henlow bees have been with us for a total of 71 days. That’s just over 10 weeks of learning, fascination, amazement at these little creatures and a little bit of worry at times too.

During this time both colonies have grown exceptionally quickly and have been enjoying foraging on the school lavender and the local lime trees. The weather hasn’t always been kind to us and finding breaks within it to be able to inspect the hives has proved difficult at times. Nevertheless, the bees have been industrious with one hive growing so quickly we were a little late in providing them with more space to grow into. This ultimately resulted in the colony swarming, which is a natural part of the honey bees reproduction cycle. The good news is that this colony has now successfully re-queened and they are growing again.

The other hive continues to be very strong with the queen laying well. The bees are happy and have been enjoying the nectar flow so much that we’ve even been able to take off our first super of Henlow Honey whilst still leaving a second for the bees to store for winter! This is something that we really were not expecting to happen this year. We have been really lucky to not really be affected by the typical ‘June Gap’ which is when forage for bees becomes scarce due to a gap in blooming flowers etc.

The honey will be processed and jarred so that it can then be sold to our community with generated funds going back into the project. We are expecting somewhere between 20-30kg!

The last 10 weeks have been a whirlwind of learning opportunities and the bees never fail to amaze us with what they can do and how industrious they are. They completely embody our Henlow values, working as the most effective team all working hard to achieve a shared goal. They are simply inspirational to work with.

When we return in September, it is likely we will begin to make preparations to close the hives down for winter, another learning curve. We are hoping to start involving students from next Spring when the colonies spring back into action so keep an eye out for the application to get involved.

We would like to thank HBC Logistics for enabling this project to get off the ground and Henlow PTA for further support during the year. Your support has enabled us to support the populations of these wonderful little pollinators and do a little bit more for our planet.

Thanks

Mrs Evans