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Bridge House Trust Creates A Buzz In Twickenham

The Trust's grant of £50,000 to the Twickenham and Thames Valley Bee-keepers' Association was celebrated on 8 October at the Association's annual Honey Show. The grant is helping the Association to refurbish its laboratory and teaching facilities and the first phase of this rebuiding work is now complete.

Clare Thomas, Chief Grants Officer, explains why this grant was awarded, 'With the number of diseases currently hitting bee communities, it has never been more important to recognise their vital role in biodiversity. The teaching of bee-keeping is crucial to ensure that bee-keepers have the knowledge and skills to ensure the future health of our bees, who play such an important role, as was recognised by Albert Einstein in his famous quote, "If the bee becomes extinct, man would only survive a few years beyond it".

According to Chris Deaves, Hon. Secretary of the Twickenham and Thames Valley Bee-keepers' Association, 'Bridge House Trust's support of the teaching of bee-keeping is helping to ensure a good supply of bees in the furure. Without these educational activities, the populations of bees in the UK are going to decline for a variety of reasons, including new disease and colony management issues. Only educated and aware bee-keepers will have bees in the future; other bee-keepers will lose them. Without this sort of help, feral bee colonies will decline in the wild.'

The Honey Show was opened by John Merivale, one of Bridge House Trust's Grants Officers, who praised the work of the Association in a radio interview on LBC, 'We're delighted that we can support experts and enthusiasts like those of the Twickenham and Thames Valley Bee-keepers' Association. They can help in the laboratory which they're now refurbishing, they can identify bee diseases and teach people about bee-keeping. It's this kind of enthusiasm that is keeping these things in the public eye and also attending to these very, very real needs of very real risks.'