Blenheim celebrate World Honey Bee Day with conservation success

Blenheim Palace celebrated World Honey Bee Day on Saturday with the success of its project to introduce bee swarms to its nine new woodlands.

The project was created as part of a legacy project and was led by Filipe Salbany, bee conservationist and beekeeper at Blenheim Estate.

To do this, the team introduced oak logs to the new plantations in the hope of enticing bees to set up home, in the absence of mature trees with suitable cavities.

The logs are intended to replicate the oaks in Blenheim’s ancient woodland which are home to over 100 colonies of wild bees.

Filipe and his team discovered that all of the logs have been filled with bee swarms, a positive outcome of the ongoing initiative as there are no managed hives in the vicinity.

As a result, this established a future ecotype bee for the Estate.

Filipe says: “It’s been a fantastic success. This is a very natural process and we know the bees inhabiting the logs have not come from managed hives.

“It’s a double whammy – not only are we using wood that might otherwise be left to rot or be burnt, but the lichens, moss and fungi on the logs carry spores which are going into the ground and helping to regenerate the soil.”

Earlier this year, Blenheim Palace opened its Rowse Honey Hive, the latest initiative in its ongoing partnership with Rowse Honey, which aims to enhance and expand habitats for pollinators across the Estate.