THE BEES ARE BACK IN TOWN
'Spread the word around
Guess who's back in town'
If you have seen the flurry of Twitter activity, you will know that the bees are back in town. On Thursday 17th May, our two new bumble bee colonies arrived safely at Warminster School via their preferred method of VIP and extremely stylish courier transport – APC Overnight. This year, some of the youngest members of our community had the very important job of housing the bumble bee colony in their wooden hives. They had lots of interesting questions and will be coming back to visit the bees to see how the comb has grown.
Mrs Cross, Head of Prep Prep said “Children in Reception have been learning all about bees this term so we were delighted when Ms Walmsley invited us to help introduce our latest swarm of bees to their new home. As Y1 children had also learnt about bees last year, they were keen to come along too, so on a beautifully sunny afternoon they met Ms Walmsley on Boniface Lawn. We were all amazed when Ms Walmsley explained that within 20 minutes the bees would have mapped an area within a 1km radius from the hive to discover sources of nectar and water.”
Year 7 Ecology group, as part of their academic enrichment lessons, are involved in a research project this year to try and 'overwinter' our Bumble bee queens. Normally when the weather changes and winter is upon us, the queen bee leaves the nest to hibernate. Our Year 7's are investigating the effect of lower temperatures on hive activity and hope that if they can keep our hive frost free that our queen will not leave. We'll keep you updated as the project progresses.
Gillian Walmsley, Science Teacher