Gold Stars awarded to nine Baldragon Academy pupils for their achievements in beekeeping

By Sheanne Mulholland

November 18 2022, 6:00am

Baldragon pupils who were awarded Gold Stars, with Fred Mollison who nominated them, HE teacher Megan Scott (top left) and pupil support assistant Caitlin Dow (top right). Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.

Nine Baldragon Academy pupils have been awarded Courier Gold Stars for their achievements in beekeeping.

Casey Henderson, Craig McKendrick, Kyle Barbour, Amelia Piorkowska, Evan Clark, Joshua Gammie, Marnie McCallum, Madison Leslie and Lewis Nicoll all received the awards.

The group have nurtured four colonies of bees in the school’s beehives, caring for them from egg to adult stages, and extracted honey and comb from the hives to create food produce.

They then entered cut comb honey and honey chutney into the Scottish National Honey Show, run by the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association.

Competing against adults and experienced beekeepers, the youngsters bagged second place for their comb honey and third for their honey chutney.

And they won first place for best school poster, which raised awareness of the importance of bees.

Baldragon Academy pupils (L-R) Kyle Barber, Amelia Piorkowska, Marnie McCallum and Lewis Nicoll with their Gold Star awards. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.

Fred Mollison, of the Baldragon Beekeepers Association, runs new rural skills classes at the Dundee secondary school in which the pupils learned their about bees.

He was so impressed with the young people’s achievements that he nominated them for Courier Gold Stars.

Kyle said: “It feels amazing to get this, I’m surprised. I’m going to put it somewhere safe in my room.”

Amelia said: “I’m proud that I made it this far, I found the bees really interesting.”

Some of the youngsters are part of a 24 strong group who volunteered to participate in a bee club where they learned about the life cycle of the insects, their biology, how to spot diseases and pollination.

They then put the theory to practice, by wearing beekeeping outfits and checking and recording data from the hives, by lifting the frames – each one filled with hundreds of bees.

Baldragon Academy pupils (L-R) Craig McKendrick, Evan Clark, Maddison Leslie and Joshua Gammie with their Gold Star awards. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.

The rest of the pupils are from the school’s home economics department who used the honey to create chutney and other food produce.

Fred said: “These are the pupils who showed an interest from day one, worked hard and showed dedication.”

He added that the quality of their work and the honey they produced was reflected by their achievements at the Scottish National Honey Show.

Want to nominate someone for a Gold Star?

Our Gold Star awards are aimed at recognising children and young people’s achievements, both in and out of school.

We are collecting nominations from the public through our online form. Winners of the award will receive one of our stunning badges and a certificate.

Full terms and conditions can be found here.