Did you know we have installed two beehives in our centre grounds?

• We're working with a local beekeeper who is part of the Derbyshire & Nottingham Bee association. We've been supplied 2 honey bee colonies by Simon Croson from the artisan honey company
• We have approximately 30,000 bees on site - 15,000 per hive
• They will reproduce and eventually we will have 30,000 in each hive
• The bee’s pollinate up to 3 miles of the landscaping and can go up to 5 miles
• We work with a local farmer who has 25 acres of wildflower located approximately 1 mile from East Midlands Designer Outlet, which our bees will love
• We have 2 queen bee’s on site which have a life span of 2-5 years, drone bee’s (male bees) only live for 3 months
• Our worker bees (female bee’s) have a lifespan of 6 weeks during summer and 3-6 months during winter. The worker bees start life by cleaning the cell they emerged from, they then become nursery bees and their primary role is to feed the queen and drones, they then become undertakers who get rid of the dead bees and clean the hive to then become a guard bee. A Guard bee's role is to guard the hive of any intruders. The last and final role of the bee is foraging bees who navigate the area to discover great sources of pollen up to 5 miles within the vacinity.
• Our Queen bee will lay up to 2,000 eggs a day, our worker bees will bring back the pollen and nectar to our hives which will then be processed by the bees into honey
• Our local bee keeper will visit weekly to inspect the health of our bees and ensure we are all happy with our new friendly guests!