"Save The Bees" display at Marple Station
Marple Station is now host to a superb new ‘Save The Bees’ display from Year Five at Mellor School. It can be viewed whenever the waiting room on the Manchester platform is open and is part of wider efforts by Friends of Marple Station to encourage bees and other wildlife at the station.
The children decided to look at the direct link between bees, pollination, the food on our plates and biodiversity. They found the UK bee population has shrunk by a third the last decade, due to habitat loss, climate change, intensive farming and pesticides.
They’ve set up an after school Bee Club and Stockport Beekeepers Association have help the children to build a bee hive and learn how to manage the bees safely once they arrive in May in time for the school to hold a Bee Day on 20th May 2022 (International Bee Day), to help raise money for necessary equipment.
Year five have also made habitats for solitary bees during their forest school sessions.
The Year five children have championed the project and their enthusiasm has known no bounds! They will be actively looking after the bees and hopefully harvesting lots of honey for the local community next year. They found out that bees pollinate much of what we eat and play a critical role in sustaining eco systems here in the UK and around the world.
The children wrote to local MP William Wragg, after learning about the pesticide, thiamethoxam, which is currently in use and is particularly harmful to bees. They will also plant a tree from Stockport Beekeepers Association as part of their ‘Trees for bees’ project.
Here are a couple of close-up photos of the display:
