Students visit City Bee Project
Students from St Peter’s C of E Aided School in Exeter visited Princesshay’s City Bee project on Thursday 5 June as part of World Environment Day.
The geography ambassadors of St Peter’s joined by SLL Geography, Mrs England, continued their education high above the busy shoppers of Exeter on Princesshay’s rooftop garden.
The pupils learnt about the importance of the honey bee and the role they have in ensuring the survival of the human race as well as receiving a lesson on how to tend to bee hives with bee keeper Jason Wallis of WeeTree Nurseries.
The rooftop garden of Princesshay continues to grow and thrive.
The introduction of the honey bees was part of an environmental initiative championed by joint landlords Land Securities and The Crown Estate in 2013. Forming part of a biodiversity strategy, the garden now hosts four hives with the aim to increase the number to five by the end of 2014.
Princesshay is one of the first shopping centres in the Land Securities portfolio to launch a City Bee project.
Andrew Littlejohns, Princesshay Operations Manager said: “We were delighted to welcome the Geography Ambassadors from St Peter’s High School to visit our ‘City Bee Project’.
"Our aim is to educate as many people as we can about the importance of the honey bee. The honey bee is a major pollinator of many food crops – without them the foods that we take for granted will decrease in supply.”
Mrs Joan England, St Peter’s Head of Geography said: “We’d like to thank Princesshay for this fabulous opportunity to visit the rooftop garden and City Bee project. Our geography ambassadors found this most interesting and a real benefit to their education.
"Our award-winning Green Team is also very interested in starting a hive at St Peter’s and so we hope the links made will continue.”
The project has already attracted much attention and interest from local artists and photographers to schools and educational projects.
Princesshay’s shops and restaurants are also proud of the project and anyone else looking to get involved should contact Princesshay Centre Management on 01392 459838.
