This blog documents the story of the Bee Limerick Group and their quest to introduce honey bees back into the city centre of Limerick. Bee Limerick along with its partners are also involved in planting native Irish flowers, shrubs and trees to create a resilient urban ecology.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Bee project contributes to Newcastle Sustainable City Award....Update about their work on Alison Benjamin’s blog

Bees in Newcastle

Newcastle has been named the greenest city in Britain by topping the annual Forum for the Future Sustainable Cities Index for the second year running. The accolade rewards the strides the city council has taken to improve energy efficiency, recycling, waste management levels and increase the use of electric vehicles with nearly 600 charging points. Yet the headlines about Newcastle’s triumph focused on its bee strategy.  Bees help keep Newcastle at top of green city table said the Guardian.
I visited the North East last month at the invitation of the council-led bee steering group to witness a range of initiatives being implemented to make Newcastle the most bee-friendly city in the UK. The strategy was launched earlier this year following a motion put to the council by Cllr Doreen Huddar who was greatly concerned about the decline in bee populations. In just a few months, a group including allotment holders, beekeepers, council workers and university researchers have been able to do a number of things to help bees from planting more bee-friendly plants (getting rid of those useless double headed varieties) in munipical flower beds and reducing the use of residual herbicide in footpaths to changing the terms of reference on allotments to allow bee hives and working with a city farm to establish a central venue for beekeeper training. It has also provided 20 bumble bee homes for sites across the city, is working with the Northumberland Wildlife Trust and local beekeepers to get bee material and hives into schools, and has two council-sponsored hives. And there are also “Love our bees!” leaflets and posters in municipal buildings with tips for how residents can help bees.
More information about the strategy and a comprehensive list of bee-friendly plants are at www.newcastle.gov.uk/bees.
Further good news is that Nottingham and Bristol council are taking an interest in Newcastle’s approach, and the project leaders will be spreading the word next month at the EuroCities conference in Zaragoza, Spain.
I was certainly impressed at the speed with which Newcastle’s bee strategy was being driven through, the partners involved and the good will on all sides. Even a council director admitted that  he was surprised at its rapid progress.
“Councils are renowed for being slow and bureaucratic. This is the exception. They just got on with it,” he said proudly. “Within an hour of the first meeting staff were saying ‘crickey we’re growing the wrong flowers’”.
Special praise must go to Joe Timothy and Russell Nelson, two young council employees who as members of its innovation forum have led the project from the start. They knew nothing about bees, but are now known as the bee boys. But without an elected councillor none of this would have happened.  So let’s hope other councillors follow Doreen’s example and get their councils to act as bee champions.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

City Council Bee Initiative in Newcastle, U.K.



It seems we are not alone at Bee-Limerick in our quest to halt the decline of honey bees. The Newcastle City Council in the U.K. is rolling out a very exciting Bee Aware strategy to address the issue of declining bees. They have carried out an amazing amount of work since being established in January 2010.

Alison Benjamin from the Guardian and a renowned author on the topic visited the city recently to see what was happening; she was very impressed as to all the work being carried out and is now helping to promote their work more widely.

In future we will be looking to share some experience and even visit some of the work in Newcastle. This will be a great opportunity to share knowledge and hopefully build a lasting partnership.

Given the global nature of the issue, the Newcastle group are looking to create a countrywide and in the long term (hopefully) a European wide partnership to tackle the issue. They have already begun contacting UK authorities and initiatives. Bee Limerick will definitely be the Irish connection with the view to rolling out the same project here.

The Newcastle group have a great Bee Aware website and is really worth a visit J

A Bee Steering Group has been established consisting of: Local bee keepers, Newcastle University, Northumberland Wildlife Trust, Natural England, Allotment Holders, The Great North Museum and a number of other interested parties.

Their Objectives include:

  • To raise awareness of the situation with residents and encourage them to be more Bee Friendly
  • To establish a baseline as to where bees are at present
  • To increase the number of bees in the city by providing the conditions to allow them to flourish and by installing bee homes

Various work streams have been established.  These include
  • Homes and Habitats
  • Communication, Awareness and Engagement
  • Education and Training


It makes it all the more worth while when we see other groups trying to achieve similiar objectives. And most importantly of all - if similiar projects catch on throughout Ireland, U.K. and the rest of Europe - there may be hope for our bees yet :)