Northampton schools celebrates 40th anniversary by introducing beehives

Inspired by tackling climate change, a Northampton school is leading the way to increase the bee population with their own apiary.
Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.
Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.

St Peter’s Independent School is the first school in Northamptonshire to embark on the British Bee Keeping Association Junior Bee Programme.

Following in the footsteps of Greta Thunberg's international youth movement and Extinction Rebellion campaigns, the staff at the school in Lingswood Park wanted to lead the way for all schools to eventually have their own beehives, which will be looked after by pupils and staff.

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Some 250,000 species of flowering plants depend on bees for pollination. Many of these are crucial to world agriculture but because of reasons like industrialised farming, pesticides have destroyed bees of their habitat and food.

Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.
Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.

It comes as the school is celebrating their 40th birthday and yesterday (Thursday) the Mayor of Northampton, Nazim Choudary, who is an advocate for tackling climate change, launched the start of the project with a representative from the British Bee Keeping Association who gave an interactive demonstration and presentation to the children.

Headteacher Julie Fenlon said: "My dad taught Religious Education and helped with sport at this school and my daughter came here too so it's really special for me that I'm headteacher in the school's 40th year.

"This year we wanted to mark the occasion and we wondered what we could do. The pupils are really interested in climate change and they are very worried about the decline in bees. I think we are the only school in Northamptonshire to do this.

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"The children have been working very hard on their bee projects, and they have got bee fever. "

Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.
Pictures taken by Kirsty Edmonds.

The school is hoping to welcome its Queen bee in the Spring term.

Children aged between three and 16 years old will have special access to the beekeeping hive, after staff have been given training.

Aside from wanting to save the planet - the children will be learning from the bees in other subjects, too. In maths they will record temperature graphs for the hives, in food technology they are making bee-themed cakes and are producing bee-inspired art.