Honeybee workshops sure to get kids buzzing at Cameron Toll this summer

Last summer, the mall secured a partnership with Scottish sustainable honey company Webster Honey to place four colonies of honeybees on the roof.

As well as helping the local environment, the bees have since been used in educational events in the centre and produce ‘Cameron Toll honey’.

This July, three free ‘drop in’ workshops will be led by experienced Webster Honey’s beekeeper Meik Molitor, who will bring along a special Observation Hive.

As well as covering the life cycle of the honeybee, each workshop will explore what happens over a year in and around a hive, what role the beekeeper has in looking after the bees, and how honey is extracted and harvested.

Molitor said: “I love carrying out workshops and find that there is huge interest in bees at the moment.

“We’re very grateful to Cameron Toll for doing this, and for their initial sponsorship of the hives last year which enabled us to take our unique honeybee hive concept onto the roof of a busy shopping centre for the very first time.

“Bees fly over huge distances, connecting with plants and flowers, so it needn’t be a rural environment that hosts them – the important thing is to sponsor a hive and increase our bee population as much as possible.”

Beehives can be located pretty much anywhere, with honeybees’ nature’s best pollinators, flying for up to three miles to pollinate trees, plants and flowers that turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Within easy reach of Holyrood Park, Hermitage of Braid and Blackford Hill Local Nature Reserve, The Meadows, and even Princes Street Gardens, the Cameron Toll bees have flourished.

Claire Jefcote, manager of Cameron Toll, said: “We were delighted when we became one of Scotland’s first shopping centres to have beehives on its roof last year. It’s a fantastic initiative to implement for the environment.

“Children are fascinated by the whole process, so the workshops are a fantastic opportunity for them to see into a hive and learn lots of fact from Meik.”

For more details, visit www.websterhoney.com

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