This May half-term we were very excited to be invited to collaborate with The Lexicon in Bracknell for part of their Bee Aware campaign. Fascinating fact, did you know that the top of Princess Square in the Lexicon has several bee hives on it? We were very impressed with this fact!
Bees are a very important part of our eco-system and in fact one third of all of our food supply is dependent on bees. Without bees, there would not be enough food for us to eat.
A study has shown that a third of bees and other pollinators such as bees and hoverflies, are in decline. At Little Muddy Boots we’re passionate about the outdoors and nature, and we’re also passionate about bees. Which meant we were delighted to be invited to be part of this project with The Lexicon. To help raise awareness about the importance of bees to the younger generation and their families.
Bee Hotel Schools Project
The first part of the project with The Lexicon was creating an amazing, giant bee hotel. This involved creating ten letters to form the words ‘The Lexicon’ and then making each of the letters into their very own bee hotel. We did this with the help of 5 local schools. A big thank you to – Crown Wood Primary School, Wooden Hill Primary, Kennel Lane, St Michaels in Sandhurst and Jennetts Park school for helping us with this project.
The five schools were selected on a first come, first served basis and each school won a Little Muddy Boot’s lesson where they helped to create the giant bee hotels. This involved drilling lots of holes into small logs to make little rooms perfect for bees.
In the classes, the children also learnt about the importance of bees, pollinator friendly plants and bee related crafts and games. Throughout the project we taught 150 local school children, which was so much fun.
Bee Aware Classes Throughout Half Term
The second part of this project saw us running Bee Aware classes for local children. In May half-term we ran classes everyday Monday to Friday in The Lexicon in Princess Square, The Lexicon. Children were able to make bee crowns, learn about how bee hives work and try on beekeeper costumes. They were also able to help drill holes for the Bee Hotel too, making it a fantastic collaborative project created with local children.
All of the classes were an absolute sellout and throughout the week Little Muddy Boots taught over 260 children local children. It was amazing to meet and teach so many about the amazing part bees play in our lives. Each children went home with a goodie bag which included a Bee bomb for them to take home and encourage bees to visit their own gardens.
This has been such an exciting project for Little Muddy Boots, we have met and spoken to so many local families and shared our passion for gardening, nature and of course the amazing roll that bees play in our lives.
The giant bee hotel, made with the help of over 400 local children, will now be used to support bees locally, giving them much needed shelter.
