Aim

Our nation's bees are facing an unprecedented crisis. Our Bee Hotel Village will provide a diverse nesting space for bees in the winter.

Wildflower meadows in decline 

According to The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s. Wildflower meadows support a variety of insects and bees and the loss of our nation's meadows is one of the reasons that bee populations are in decline. 

Following a successful fundraise with Aviva Community Fund last year, we have now started construction of our five acre meadow which will soon become home to 42 different species of native wildflowers. 

But we want to do more. And we would like your help to accomplish even more for biodiversity and for our native pollinators.

Building the largest Bee Hotel Village in Loch Ness

In the UK we have around 270 species of bee and of them, 24 are species of bumblebee. Many of our rarer bumblebee species don’t forage more than 1km from the nest, and 5-600 metres is common, so areas must be both flower-rich and diverse to provide enough flowers to sustain the colony each year. We will design and build nesting sites close to our meadow for bumblebees to nest over the winter, with early flowering pollinating plants positioned close to the nests. Our hotel village will ensure nesting bumblebees have the best possible chance of survival over the winter, in a place where they will not be disturbed and which is tailor made to help them to thrive.  

The UK is also home to 250 different species of solitary bees. These bees can be amazingly effective pollinators and, as the name suggests, tend not to live in colonies or hives like bumblebees and honey bees. We will provide different bee hotels around the meadow for them to nest over the winter, with individual nesting areas of different sizes for different species of bee.

Creating change for bees

Bees are essential to a sustainable, healthy ecosystem, but their numbers are declining at a terrifying rate. We would like your help to reverse the decline. Your donation will help do that. Every penny will go directly to this work, saving bees and other pollinators.

Our project is also about more than saving bees alone. We will monitor the types of bee  which we get in the meadow, which will help us to tailor make the support we provide. This is particularly important for the rarer species. We also plan to hold educational classes for people to come along and build their own hotel to take home. 

Lets help to save our nation's bees together. One step, one meadow, one bee hotel at a time. 

This project successfully funded on 12th April 2022