Haringey's bee ambassadors

Mayor Boris Johnson will give “community beehives” to five groups in Haringey to foster new bee communities, which will see them attend bee-training sessions before being given the equipment and a spring bee colony next year.

Boris Johnson said the hives will create “sanctuaries for the urban bee” and help the Capital Growth scheme to create 2,012 community food growing spaces in London by 2012.

Training ranges from classroom-based lessons on urban beekeeping and equipment knowledge, to the practical, such as hands-on experience of making honey and siting or building hives.

The Five groups becoming bee ambassadors in Haringey are HAIL/Circle 33 whose growing space is based in the large double garden of one of HAIL's supported housing projects. HAIL supports people with learning disabilities to lead their own lives. Green Giants are a social enterprise founded by several HAIL services users and guided by Anthony Smith, Green Giants Manager. Green Giants supports people with learning disabilities to gain practical experience in gardening, this can lead to them gaining an NVQ in horticulture; Fortis Green Community Allotments Trust, a not-for-profit Company, formed to purchase the allotment site and manage it in perpetuity as allotments; Highgate Synagogue; The Meadow Orchard Project, a large site approx 1.5 acres behind the new Hornsey health centre (see a HOL interview about this project here and Positive Earth Project in collaboration with Thornton’s Budgens, based in Crouch End.

For a full list of community apiaries, click here