Blenheim Palace celebrates World Honey Bee Day with woodland swarm success

Blenheim Palace is celebrating World Honey Bee Day (17th August) with the success of its project to introduce bee swarms to its nine new woodlands which were created as part of a groundbreaking legacy project.

Led by Filipe Salbany, bee conservationist and Beekeeper at Blenheim Estate, the team had 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 have 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, therefore establishing the future ecotype bee for the Estate.

“It’s been a fantastic success,” says Filipe. “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, creating a natural environment where wildlife can not only survive, but thrive.

For more information or to purchase tickets to visit Britain’s Greatest Palace and its stunning grounds visit, www.blenheimpalace.com/tickets-booking/

ENDS

Issued on behalf of Blenheim Palace and Estate. For more information please contact Jon Perks at Cab Campaign – blenheim@cabcampaign.co.uk

About Blenheim Palace
Home to the Dukes of Marlborough since 1705, Blenheim Palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

Set in over 2,000 acres of ‘Capability’ Brown landscaped parkland and designed by
Vanbrugh in the Baroque style, it was financed by Queen Anne, on behalf of a grateful nation, following the first Duke of Marlborough’s triumph over the French in the War of the Spanish Succession.

Today it houses one of the most important and extensive collections in Europe, which includes portraits, furniture, sculpture and tapestries.

Blenheim Palace is also the birthplace of one of Britain’s most famous leaders, Sir Winston Churchill, and it was his father who described the vista on entering the Estate from the village of Woodstock as the ‘finest view in England’.