DJRFF at Open Farm Sunday
Earlier in the year, we were delighted to be invited by Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust to run some beekeeping activities as part of Open Farm Sunday. Open Farm Sunday is a fantastic initiative, where farmers across the UK open their gates and welcome millions of people onto their farms for one Sunday in June each year. It’s a brilliant opportunity for people of all ages to learn about where their food comes from, explore the surrounding countryside, and discover more about the goods and services that are provided by farmers. We were part of the event held at Our Cow Molly - a dairy farm and home to a well-loved ice-cream parlour in Dungworth, Sheffield.
Our head beekeeper, Yvonne, has some amazing resources which she brought along on the day to give families a glimpse into the fascinating world of beekeeping. This included a hive, bee suit, honeycomb, beeswax, bee goggles, books and much more! We also arranged to borrow the Beespoon from Lancaster University to take along on the day. The Beespoon is an exhibit, developed as part of the Telling the Bees project (a collaboration between: University of Edinburgh, University of Sheffield, University of Falmouth, University of Lancaster and Tay Landscape Partnership) made up of a tiny copper spoon (1/12 the size of a teaspoon) on a plinth, which can contain the amount of honey that one worker bee makes in their lifetime.
Both adults and children were amazed to find out how hard bees need to work, and how many flowers they need to visit to be able to make such a small amount of honey. We then asked attendees to make an origami flower which presented an opportunity to talk about how bees see and finally, we added nectar guides to the flowers using UV pens. Each person then pressed a button - which keeps a count of how many flowers have been made - on the plinth and if lucky, saw a drop of honey fall onto the spoon. Our challenge was to have filled the spoon by the end of the day! We then gave each family a packet of wildflower seeds to take away with them. Everyone was very keen to get planting and do their bit to make their gardens and window sills as pollinator-friendly as possible!
The day was a great success! There was such enthusiasm for learning about bees and interest in the work of the foundation. We couldn’t leave without enjoying an ice-cream and are grateful to the Wildlife Trust and Our Cow Molly for having us.
While the Beespoon was on loan to the foundation, we took it along to Oughtibridge Primary and Stannington Infants in Sheffield and Ashbrow Primary in Huddersfield. We really enjoyed having the opportunity to visit some of our Beehives for Schools members after so long and it was a real pleasure to talk to the children about the importance of wildflowers - not just for honeybees, but for our wild pollinators too.
Many thanks to Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust for sharing these photographs with us.