We're buzzing with excitement.

Our office rooftop is an ideal, safe place for our pollinators to call home as the environment fulfils the three main requirements that they need:

• An absence of pesticides
• An abundance of water and floral resources
• Flight lines that are away from humans

Within our area of Reading there is a huge and varied amount of forage available, from parks and gardens to waste ground and railway cuttings. All of which is free from pesticides, unlike rural areas, which ensures that our bees remain healthy.

There is consensus amongst bee aficionados regarding the location of beehives on a roof, the hive should be in a dry sunny position and face a southerly direction in the Northern hemisphere and a northerly direction in the Southern hemisphere. The idea is that the bees will get the maximum amount of sunlight at the earliest possible time in the morning.

Steve, our local beekeeper, has bred and supplied them from a stock of UK honeybees. He will pop in regularly throughout the year to check on them and make sure they stay healthy and bumble along nicely. He will also make sure the colonies don’t get too big and start swarming i.e. leave the hive as a big group.

Steve up on the roof with our CEO Rod Barthet (on left).

Humans have been working with Honeybees for over 9000 years, however many people find the idea of keeping bees in cities strange and worry about the dangers of large groups of bees near humans. There is a perception that bees are aggressive and dangerous to people.

People need not fear honeybees as they have been bred for safety. With urban beehives usually placed where there is minimal human contact, the only places where an encounter could happen is when honeybees are pollinating flowers in window boxes, trees and gardens.