Schools & Education

Finding new and inspirational ways to teach subjects such as Science, Technology and Engineering can be a challenge. At BeesMAX we tackle this by exploring the life of the bee and the wildlife and environment surrounding it to keep pupils interested, whilst teaching key skills in all of these subject areas. As well as this, you’ll be helping to regenerate the bee population!

BeesMAX provide a wide range of bespoke educational beekeeping services for schools, ranging from the small IT-enabled hive Junior Colony to the much larger Senior Colony that will produce enough honey to eat.

Initially, because of the time and resources required to manage the larger colonies, we recommend starting with our Junior Bee Hive Service. This will also give you experience of what having a hive on site is like and what is involved.

However, if you are at an advanced stage with your own apiary development, then the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) will gladly assist in this process. We will link you to the national school BBKA project that aims to establish fully trained beekeepers and apiaries within schools.

Please click here for a typical example of how much good quality bee associated material there is available.

The Data Only Service

This is for those who either don’t want a hive on site or don’t have the space, but who would still like to have access to data from a hive, as well as sample lesson plans, in order to teach and structure lessons around the bee population.

This works by collecting half hourly information from a hive, which is returned as a graphical display to you. The IT Data Service and all necessary materials are provided within the annual fee.

The Junior Bee Hive

Our Junior Bee Hive service provides all the IT enabled educational services without the hassle of establishing the local in-house experience, policies and processes necessary for the more invasive and traditional methods of keeping bees.

We provide all the necessary equipment, time and materials within the annual rental fee as a totally outsourced service. Provided with this service are:

  • bees, their home and ongoing management of the bees
  • IT data collection service and remote logins to access the graphs and pictorial displays
  • template educational material that can be modified to begin your own lesson plans
  • once a year, small amounts of your own honey comb for tasting
  • a list of all the plants your bees have visited and collected pollen from

Our Junior Bee Hive Service can be viewed as a more free-range type of beekeeping as they:

  • are not intended to produce many pounds of liquid honey for our consumption
  • do not require extensive swarm control or extra equipment to manufacture honey in jars

Extra services can provided upon request.

However, if your school wishes to develop your own apiary with your own bees and equipment then the British Beekeepers Association can assist in this process and we will refer you to the correct department.In 2019, we will begin providing a similar service to that of theBBKA where we can network you with a local beekeeper who is willing to assist with establishing your own apiary.

Or, we can migrate you to the senior colony service where we continue to provide the full management service, but for the larger hives that produce enough honey to extract and bottle.

The Senior Bee Hive Service

The Senior Bee Hive service is for schools and educational establishments that wish to learn hands-on practical beekeeping and become a member of their local BBKA club, of which there are many throughout the UK.

After having successfully experienced our Junior Colony Service, we can help transition your school to the more traditional apiary environment of multiple colonies, using equipment known as the National Bee Hive. The BBKA may be able to provide some funding towards your own equipment.

The knowledge required for you to make the necessary decisions and investment choices will come from the practical experience of running and making use of our Junior Bee Hive Service. Apart from the costings and corporate sponsorship opportunities, we also facilitate the discussions surrounding where a suitable location can be found for the multiple hives of the Senior Colony Service.

Suitable locations within the school grounds need to take into account many local environmental factors. These can only be fully explored and resolved via our site survey, which we are very experienced in providing.Our survey service will explore all the opportunities you have to keep bees, and we will try to make it happen if, at all, possible.

Frequently Asked Questions

40% of all charges can be paid in trade pounds.

Normally 36 months but the bees can be removed within 48hrs if they become a problem with neighbours, parents or the general public. Extra activities can be organised. Prices do vary for these extra activities.

Usually up to 1 per site with 1 containing an Arnia sytem

Checked 3 times a year with supplementary feeding where required.

Yes, via the remote data collection browser.

The graphs showing how the weight changes on a daily basis . If they need more food then that will be provided/p>

Once a year by prior arrangement and generally at the same time as the honey comb tasting day. More bee hive activity days can be organised with about4 weeks notice.