Discover Exeter's Shopping Centre Rooftop Bee Garden
- Vicki Gardner
- Apr 9, 2024
- 5 min read
The Buzzing Princesshay Rooftop Bee Garden
Discover Exeter's Princesshay Shopping Centre Rooftop Bee garden with me...
High above the busy shoppers at the Princesshay shopping centre in Exeter, nestled between shop roofs and air conditioning units, is a tranquil oasis of calm. Built in 2012 the Princesshay rooftop bee garden was originally the brainchild of Andrew Littlejohns who was Operations Manager at the time. After watching a programme on the decline of honeybees, he realised there was an opportunity to use the dead space above the shopping centre. The bee garden is funded by The Crown Estate and Nuveen Real Estate who are the landlords of the shopping centre and who had the foresight and imagination to see the bee garden as part of an environmental initiative that forms part of the company’s wider biodiversity strategy. The garden is managed by Jason Willis, a beekeeper, and five volunteers who help look after the bees and the garden. The bees are inspected once a week for health and to extract any honey. The honey is then sold in the Chandos Deli underneath the garden in the shopping centre and the profit made from sales goes towards Princesshay’s Charity of the Year.
Visitors are welcomed to the garden through bee tours and there are group visits by schools and scout groups. Other interested groups are also actively encouraged. The garden receives around 600 visitors a year, all of whom are extremely positive about the initiative. The garden currently has four hives, with approximately 240,000 bees. In the summer months an observation hive is set up with glass panels for visitors to watch the activity within the hive. The hives are situated at the base of an industrial wall with an ‘en-suite’ espalier of flowering apple tree behind each one, with a bank of air conditioning units between the hives and the rest of the garden. Large wooden planters are filled with carefully selected plants to offer year-round flowers, but particularly from March to September when the bees are most active. The plants grown are all rich in pollen, for protein and nectar, for carbohydrates. Bees can travel up to three or more miles from the hive for
food, but a more normal average would be under a mile. Under the rooftop garden, in the shopping centre, is The Hive, a small room with information boards about the bee garden. Opposite The Hive is a lightbox, a bespoke commissioned piece by local artist Amy Shelton, called The Princesshay Honey Flow. The lightbox showcases the flowers and plants from across Exeter that are considered most important to the Princesshay bees, from the first flowers of spring and then through the seasons. This is a unique way to educate people on local flora, from a bee’s perspective.
Bees are vital to our survival because, along with other pollinators like butterflies and moths, they help to pollinate up to 75% of the plants on the planet, including crops. In the UK, our bees are in serious decline; habitat loss, pollution, including pesticides and herbicides and climate change are all contributing to the decline in numbers and yet,
in the UK alone around 70 crops depend on bee pollination. They then support other insects which feed the birds, bats, mammals and so on up the food chain. A huge 97% of our wildflower meadows have been lost since the 1930’s and 90% of traditional apple orchards since the 1950’s, just a couple of examples of the levels of loss of our natural habitats in the last century.
What can you do to help pollinators? Firstly, ditch the chemicals; pesticides are indiscriminate, they’ll kill everything, not just the pests you’re aiming for, but any other little critters and minibeasts around, including bees. This can upset the balance of your local ecosystem too. If you kill the aphids, how are the ladybird or hoverfly larvae going to eat? Routine use of pesticides also negatively impacts wildlife further up the food chain. Chemicals leach into the soil and end up washed into our rivers and seas affecting and killing aquatic life, and these chemicals enter the food chain; birds eat worms and insects, and the pesticides move up the food chain. Herbicides can kill plants regarded as weeds, removing vital sources of food and shelter for wild species. Studies have shown that at every level in the UK, our natural environment is negatively impacted by chemicals and our biodiversity has declined by nearly 50% since the 1970s. More than one in seven of our native species face extinction and more than 40% are in decline. We are one of the most nature depleted countries in the world.
Currently our rivers in England have only a paltry 14% deemed to be in good health and every single river in England fails to meet chemical standards. Ditching the chemicals can start at home and on the allotment. Secondly, plant pollinator friendly plants and try to ensure a year-round supply. Flowers that are open in the centre and with the colours purple, violet and blue are more likely to attract bees. Early season plants for pollinators include crocus, hyacinth, primrose, hellebore, maples, oaks, dandelion and willows. Late season plants include potentilla, aster, sunflowers, goldenrod and viburnum. Fill your garden with a mixture of native flowers and herbs for our native bees but also non-native flowers which can be irresistible to bees if they produce a lot of nectar. Think along the lines of annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, vegetables and herbs, then you’ll be attracting a greater diversity of bee species and other pollinators.
There have been numerous studies that show that denser populations of honeybees and hives in urban areas can have a detrimental effect on the wild bee population because the honeybees are in such great concentrations and are super-efficient at collecting the pollen and nectar and so strip the local area, thus out competing native bees. Ensuring sufficient food sources for all bees, honey and wild, is of paramount importance. So, extend your flowerbeds, harass your local council to plant more trees and shrubs or encourage your school or church to make good use of unused ground. The rise of patios, artificial grass and decking can also prevent wild ground nesting bees from finding a home but increasing flower beds can help them, and building or putting up bee hotels for the wild bees that nest in cavities can be a help. One interesting fact; if you mow your lawn less frequently, you can expect to see a rise in bee abundance of up to 30% due to the increase in ‘weeds’ such as dandelion and clover. So, perhaps we all need to be a little less precious about our perfectly manicured lawns and embrace a little more ‘wild’. Your local bee population, and other pollinators, will thank you for it.
The plants in the Princesshay Bee Garden include fruit, herbs, shrubs, trees, bulbs and assorted annuals. Specific varieties are; Viburnum juddii, Viburnum tinus, Viburnum carlesii, Lavendula Hidcote, Lavendula Munstead, Hamamelis Arnold Promise, Caenothus thyrsiflorus repens, Ribes King Edward V11, Deutzia scabre Plena, Deutzia gracilis, Sedum Autumn Joy, Corylus avellana Contorta, Hedera green and variegated, Escallonia Apple Blossom, Ceanothus Puget Blue, Rosemarinus Prostratus, Cornus Sibirica Variegata, Cornus Sibirica, Cornus alba Elegantissima, Symphoricarpos Hancock, Symphoricarpos albus, Clethra alnifolia Hummingbird, Cornus alba Kesselringii, Cornus stolonifera Flaviramea, Kolkwitzia amabilis Maradco, Hydrangea Pink, Hydrangea Blue, Cistus Lusitanicus Decumbens, Choisya ternata, Cystisus scoparius, Rosa gallica Versicolor, Sedum Autumn Joy, Hydrangea White, Chaenomeles and Cotoneaster dammeri. The herbs included are borage, chives, fennel, parsley, rosemary and thyme and fruit and vegetables include apple, pear, plum, blackberry, blackcurrant, blueberry, gooseberry, raspberry, redcurrant, rhubarb, strawberry and tayberry.
© Vicki Gardner
with thanks to Trevor Gomm, Operations Manager at Princesshay Shopping Centre
Article and images available from GAP Plant and Garden Photo
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