Bees at Boothtown and Southowram

At Boothtown & Southowram Methodist Church we are doing our best for the environment, we now have two families of honey bees living in our church wall. One has been there about 10 years and the other took up residence last year. Our wild flower garden on the north side of the church and the many bushes and plants on the south side are obviously an attraction to them. We looked at the wall with a thermal imaging camera and heat coming from the bees should help by saving on out gas bill which is doubling in October.

If anyone gets bees setting up home on their premises I can assure you they are not a problem, in fact they a good talking point with our neighbours.

We do occasionally have a swarm appear looking for somewhere to set down their roots, these can be scary for some people, we have had two in the last week but with the excellent help of Lisa Conner, a local bee keeper, they were taken away and put into hives. I learnt a lot about bees from Lisa while helping her remove the swarm (only got stung twice before putting on a suit). We did consider getting a hive for the church garden but with the fear of vandalism we decided against it.

Phillip Waldron