A volunteer is looking after the buzzing bees at a development in Yate one year after being recruited as part of a new project to help the insects thrive.
Chelsea Parker grabbed the opportunity to help following a call out for volunteers. Along with a small group of residents from Ladden Garden Village, the team has offered their spare time to assist with the development’s busiest little creatures.
LiveWest and Barratt David Wilson Homes South West jointly funded a beekeeping course and provided bee suits to ensure volunteers are well equipped as they care for the development’s smallest residents.
Local volunteer beekeeper Alan Stott had looked after numerous well-established hives in Yate, plus the beehive at Ladden Garden Village for more than four years.
After hanging up his bee suit last year, a callout was issued for volunteers to take over from Alan and look after the hives which can home up to 60,000 bees in the summer months.
Six volunteers who took part in the training 12 months ago are continuing with beekeeping with Chelsea finding the experience extremely rewarding. She has found it surprising how much there is to know about bees and one year on, remains excited to look after them.
Chelsea Parker, our resident at Ladden Garden Village, said: “We’ve got a good little team in place who all care about the wellbeing of the bees. We meet up regularly and others also help when they can.”
As part of the training, the volunteers completed a three-day course run by Bristol Beekeepers which is a branch of the Avon Beekeepers Association to help them learn more about bees and explore what they could do with the beehives.
Chelsea's son Logan, 10, went to his school and told them his mum is a beekeeper. They invited her in to deliver a presentation on beekeeping to two school year groups including Reception and Year Four.
Chelsea said: “I had only been doing the beekeeping a few months when they invited me to speak to pupils who were fascinated to know that I look after beehives right on their doorstep! It was a win-win for both of us because I got to teach them about the bees, and they were then able to spread that knowledge and power to others.
“They got a lot out of it, and they tried on the suits. It’s better to be an experience rather than learning it on paper. I pick them up from school, and the kids say, ‘I remember so much about the bees because of you’.”
Chelsea, a mum of three is encouraging everyone to get involved in nature and has posted facts about bees on TikTok to improve people’s understanding which has had a great reaction from the online community.
The volunteers are now in search of more beehives and suitable locations to put around the development so the team can look after even more bees.
Chelsea said: “If we’re to look after more bees we need access to more space as we can’t add them to the current beehive. Hopefully we can find somewhere to take care of them within Ladden Garden Village which has lots of open space, it’s just more about getting permission to have them.
“We’d then have to recruit more volunteers rather than everyone on one hive. It’s not difficult to get more hives, it’s just finding spots for them. One beehive doesn’t generate much honey but if we had more, we could collect and sell it. We’d then use the money to fund the beekeeping volunteering and be more self-sufficient.
“The development has lots of green spaces and areas that are being maintained for wildlife purposes so the addition of more beehives would make it more environmentally friendly and enhance the space that is already being created.”
Marie Burke, our Community Connector, said: “It’s fantastic to see the time and effort the volunteers have put in to get this initiative off the ground. It’s so important we look after our wildlife and protect the bees who are an important addition in making sure we have spaces that are biodiverse.
“Chelsea has been great to work with and she has brought such enthusiasm when tending to the bees. It’s great that the volunteers have embraced the beekeeping experience and I’m proud that, along with our partners, we have been able to support this project.”
Louise Ware, Sales Director for Barratt David Wilson Homes South West, added: “It’s quite rare to see beehives at new build developments but they can really bring communities together, as we’re seeing at Ladden Garden Village.
"Chelsea and the team are doing a remarkable job and I’m excited to see how they progress and make the most of this unique opportunity at the development.”