Wildwood Kent provides bees to London Zoo

Wildwood Kent provides London Zoo with a new colony of Bees!

Our Director of Zoological Operations, Mark Habben, has strong connections with ZSL, having worked there for many years, and heard a little buzz via ZSL curator Paul Pearce-Kelly that London Zoo were seeking a new colony of bees for their ‘Tiny Giants’ invertebrate house.

Collaboration is the key to conservation! So, we organised a split from our largest Wildwood colony; from the Queen we call ‘Queen Elizabeth’ - hardy and prolific -  the oldest queen bee in the Bee Zone at Wildwood Kent.

We split the colony in Spring and had to wait to see if a new queen would hatch and mate effectively, which she did.

We then safely transferred this new colony from the Wildwood's Langstroth sized frames to a National sized hive to fit the London zoo hive. The bee transportation started at 4.30am so we could shut the hive entrance before the bees started flying.

The trip to London was a breeze. We arrived and had set up the bees in their new position by 8am. As our incredible volunteers Jenny and Janet opened the entrance to the hive, they saw them gently flow out and start to explore their new surroundings, performing orientation flights around the hive. 

Jenny and Janet were then kindly treated to a wonderful tour around the Invertebrates house and heard about all the projects and collaborations taking place, followed by a great day exploring London zoo. 

If you plan to take a trip to London zoo, do take a visit to the ’Tiny Giants’ and say hello to the bees from Wildwood!