Tree bees have nested in a wild meadow created by pupils in a Perthshire school’s grounds.
Youngsters in form six and seven at Craigclowan Preparatory School created the wild area by planting trees, shrubs and flowers known to encourage biodiversity.
They also made insect hotels and bird boxes for the meadow and their work was so successful that it brought a colony of tree bumblebees to settle in the area.
Pupil Edwin Fleming, 11, who is in form 7, said: “They’ve created a hive in one of the bird boxes. You can hear them, they’re quite noisy, quite buzzy.
“It’s exciting to have bees and interesting as well. Bees are a lot more to the world than just an insect – they make honey, pollinate our flowers and help us too.”
The pupils created the wild area as part of their involvement in a larger project funded by Erasmus, called the Melissa Project.
Through this, the youngsters studied the biodiversity of bees, including researching and selecting the plants for their wild meadow, then prepping the area and planting the items themselves.
They had initially tried to introduce bees in more traditional beehives, however the bees did not settle well into the school setting.
Craigclowan school biodiversity trail
Pupils also created a 12-point biodiversity trail around the school’s grounds, including a forest area, outdoor classroom, wild flower meadow, hedgerow and bat boxes.
And they connected with other participating schools from across Europe, including hosting international families from The Azores, Thessaloniki in Greece, Verbania in Italy and Voru in Estonia.
Each of the visitors brought honey from their school’s bees and the children delighted in tasting the variety of honey produced.
Edwin added: “Bees adapt to their different countries, so the honeys all tasted different.
“Some were sweet, some were bitter, others were very sugary. The Portuguese one was my favourite. It was quite sweet and very liquidy.”
Amelia Lyle, 12, also in form 7 at Craigclowan, hosted twins from Italy at her farm-based home. She said: “Hosting was an amazing experience.
“We took the twins to an ice cream parlour, played badminton, went to our friends’ house who were also hosting for a BBQ and took them to school where they had their lessons in the library.
“They were here when the Queen’s Jubilee was happening so they were involved in our celebrations for that.
“It’s opened my eyes to other people and their culture. They had lots of day trips with the school, we went to Edinburgh and walking in Dunkeld, and they gave us an amazing presentation about their culture.”
Amelia and some of her fellow pupils will visit Italy in September to continue their work on the two year project.
Conversation