Buzzing draws the crowds to Hampshire’s Science Centre April 30, 2009

People of all ages swarmed to INTECH Science Centre and Planetarium this National Science and Engineering Week for the South of England’s regional Save our Bees Campaign event.

 The theme of ‘Busy Bees at INTECH’ was to raise awareness of the plight of our bees with the Winchester Beekeepers taking centre stage at the event demonstrating the ancient and vital practice of beekeeping with the observation hive. Attendees picked up their free seeds and made a fingerprint pledge to ‘save our bees’.

Badge making, honey tasting, seed planting and computer microscopes were just a few of the activities on offer, as well as arts and crafts and bee-nest making. The plant display also showed the wide variety of plants and flowers you can plant in your garden to attract your local honey bees.

The Planetarium played host for the first time in its history to a live musical event with the Buzzing! show by Anneliese Emmans-Dean of thebigbuzz. The 30 minute ‘edutainment’ show featured musical poetry and imagery projected onto the dome, inspiring and informing younger minds about the amazing life of the honey bee.

 

…bees are a major pollinator and without them there would be a huge decline in fruits, nuts and berry yields…

 

 

 

 

The UK’s bees are reportedly facing mass extinction, with colonies disappearing up and down the country there is still a lot of research to be done to find out why this is happening.

We do knowthat bees are a major pollinator and without them there would be a huge decline in fruits, nuts and berry yields, not only having a knock-on effect to the agriculture industry, but also the food available to nature’s foragers.

Saving Britians bees became a major project for the British Science Association this March, in our efforts to highlight the plight of the honey bee we managed to give away over 22,000 packets of seeds all across the country and have had countless downloads of the education and information pack.

The British Beekeeping Association was vital to the success of the national campaign, as were Rowse Honey who kindly sponsored our national and regional efforts and donated honey tasting kits and posters.

While the free seed supply has now been completely exhausted, you can still register and download a free education pack at www.saveourbees.org.uk