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New exhibition should create a buzz!
A NEW exhibition highlighting the importance of honeybees opens at Wakehurst Place on May 1.
The event marks the International Year of Biodiversity and runs throughout the summer until September.
Visitors will be able to learn more about honeybee behaviour from a glass-sided observation hive and a small apiary set up with the help of Central Sussex Beekeepers Association with both becoming permanent features of Wakehurst.
The exhibition in a newly-created wildflower meadow opposite the Millennium Seed Bank has an eye-catching welcome in the shape of a willow sculpture of bees swarming around a group of flowers, created by artist Tom Hare.
Wakehurst's Conservation and Woodlands Manager Iain Parkinson said: "Honeybees are one of the most important pollinators for crops and wild flowers, and they pollinate around one third of everything we eat.
"The exhibition will enable visitors to find out more about the bees – including the intricate 'waggle dances' they use to communicate – and we hope they will be inspired to plant flowers in their own gardens to attract bees."
Plants to attract honeybees include daisy-like flowers such as asters, cosmos, and sunflowers, as well as those with short, tubular flowers such as lavender, rosemary and hebes.
Other flowers popular with bees include borage, hardy geraniums, foxgloves and achilleas.
Spring Flower Weekends are also being held now at Wakehurst with a programme of walks and tours, including by minbus, between until Sunday May 9
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Weather for Haywards Heath
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 26 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 13 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North west
