Creating a buzz at Television Centre

Television Centre, the former home of the BBC at White City, is hosting a colony of busy honey bees on its roof as part of a sustainability initiative supported by Mace.

The London Bee Company delivered the bees this month and have been placed on Studio One's roof where they have been housed permanently in wooden bee boxes.

Mace began work on Television Centre in 2014 and homes went on sale this Summer. The 130,000 square metre mixed-use redevelopment will house 950 apartments, retail and office spaces and a boutique hotel alongside remaining BBC studios. The project team welcomed the bees earlier this week.

Despite having short life spans bees keep our planet’s ecosystem ticking over but recently the number of honey bees has been rapidly decreasing. Initiatives such as this allow bees to live in non-invasive spaces where they are in close proximity to a variety of wild plants – meaning a lot more honey is produced.

The London Bee Company is a small independent business that aims to promote healthy bee colonies in a sustainable and responsible way.

Local primary school children will be invited to take a look at how the bees are getting on. The honey will go on sale on the London Bee Company website.

Alistair Shaw, Managing Director of Television Centre said: We love the idea of having bees on our roof and we hope they will become as busy as we have been in creating a place that they can call home.”

Mace’s Employment and Community Engagement Manager at Television Centre, Fiona Henderson, said: “We wanted to bring the bee boxes to Television Centre in order to support local, small businesses and also increase our sustainability measures. It’s great to have them here and we are looking forward to getting the neighbouring primary school involved, showing them what we are doing on site both in terms of construction and this sustainability initiative.”