Oxton woman’s key role in thriving city centre rooftop beekeeping project

Aug 24 2011 by Helen Hunt, Birkenhead News

Oxton woman’s key role in thriving city centre rooftop beekeeping project

AN OXTON woman has learned about the secret life of bees though a rooftop beekeeping project that is causing a buzz.

Lesley Reith is project manager of the Hope Street Honey Project, set up a year ago at Blackburne House, off Hope Street, Liverpool, with the dual aim of saving the dwindling honey bee population and establishing a business enterprise.

Going from strength to strength, it has set up links with the already well-established bee-keeping community in Liverpool as well as local businesses.

And in October Blackburne House will host “The Honey Show” an exhibition staged to celebrate bees and honey.

Ms Reith said the project – which has two bee houses, each capable of holding 40,000 bees – would soon be ready to sell the honey.

She said: “The honey is ready now and we have just bought an extractor and are waiting for it to be delivered. And we’ve already got the jars to put it into.”

The idea for the project came when enterprise director at Blackburne House and project founder, Jo McGrath from Aigburth, was having a conversation about an article she had read about the decline of the honey bee population and how urban spaces can be great places to put apiarys.

She thought the flat roof of Blackburne House would be ideal. She asked Liverpool Women’s Institute if they wanted to be involved and it soon created a buzz.

Four volunteers trained up as beekeepers with the help of a funding grant from the National Lottery’s Local Food Grant Initiative and money was spent on equipment.

Ms McGrath said bees fly out in a three mile radius which takes in a lot of hidden green space in the city including Princes Park and Faulkner Square.

Blackburne House is also engaging with local schools and is developing educational projects such as setting up a webcam so pupils can view the life of bees and the process of making honey from the classroom.

Ms Reith added: “This project has taught me an awful lot about bees.

“What surprised me about bees is the distance they go to to get nectar and pollen and how industrious they are. ”