A Tesco community manager in Cornwall, Lucy Hughes, has negotiated a sweet deal for Cornish bees, in partnership with the Bee Improvement Programme for Cornwall (BIPCo) and a number of Tesco stores in the Cornwall and Devon area.
The initiative sees the sugar from split bags collected, rather than wasted, and sent to the local bee conservation association to be turned into syrup.
The syrup is used as a replacement for harvested nectar and honey, or to boost a hive’s natural reserves, which can be insufficient to survive the winter.
The UK’s bee population has decreased by 30% over the last ten years, due to a diminishing natural environment and increasing threats to hives from pests and disease.
The chairman of BIPCo, Nick Bentham-Green, has welcomed the Tesco initiative. Explaining that the bees had struggled even more than usual over the last years on account of the poor summers, he considered the Tesco scheme as a great aid to the conservation of the native British honey bee.
Elsewhere in Cornwall, the B4 (Bringing Back the Black Bees) association recently received a grant of £10,000 through the Tesco 'Bags of Help' scheme, which was used to set up a black bee colony at the Mount Edgcumbe estate, near Plymouth.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Martha Sparrius. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
