A group of excited bee enthusiasts got together last Thursday for the first meeting of the Norwich Community Bees initiative.At the Spring Scheming in March this year, one of the ideas that came out was the idea of a community-led beekeeping initiative. I'd been very impressed by the Bungay Community Bees scheme and thought it would be fantastic if we could do something similar in Norwich. The well-publicised decline in bee populations in the UK has concerned a lot of people and there was a lot of enthusiasm in the room to take this idea further. I offered to start the ball rolling and began to contact people in Transition Norwich and beyond.
The people at Norwich Farmshare were keen to support us, and offered a space on the Postwick site to get us started, as well as putting us in touch with a local experienced beekeeper. The group has now started pulling together the plans to make it all happen. We now have 18 members, including a number of qualified and part-qualified beekeepers. It's been fantastic to see how much energy and enthusiasm there's been so far, and I'm really excited about the future of the scheme.
Latest news! this Saturday (18 June) we'll be setting up our donated hive on the Norwich FarmShare site and generally getting things ready for the bees to move in at a date tbc! From 2pm onwards.
If you'd like to be a part of Norwich Community Bees, or would like to know more, contact Jon at jaysaulcurran@hotmail.com.
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