World Bee Day was celebrated for the first time in the orchard on Sat 20th May 2023 and it was a glorious sunny day. The purpose of this international day is to acknowledge the importance of bees and other pollinators, our food security & entire ecosystem depend on them. The orchard had loads of information about bees and other pollinators on display.
The main event was the puppet show, Squashbox theatre, performed by Craig with his Skillywidden show. This funny show focussed on the wildlife and faery myths of Cornwall with a special emphasis on bees and which kept kids and adults laughing and enthralled for an hour and a half.
There were lots of bee-themed art and craft activities led by orchard volunteers. Elise Worral led a bee-themed print-making activity, Sarah, her Mum & kids did flower & bee-making crafts and Gisela & Angela led the painting of bees activities. Lots of lovely crafts were made.
Phil Grierson brought up his very interesting hand-cranked organ to play which added a lovely atmosphere and a group from the St Ives library all came up to lead a seed planting and pot painting activity.
We had our orchard bee-keeper Duwayne Langley with Alex serving apple juice bar and chatting about the bee-hives in the orchard and natural beekeeping.
There were loads of cakes and proper cream teas and watermelons served by Sue, Phoebe & Pene as well as chatting about the exciting new build plans that were on display. Thank you so much to everyone who brought so many delicious cakes!
Viv Stratton led a walk around the orchard and up to the top of the hill where much was learnt about the history of the land and it’s wildlife. He commented on how many orange tip butterflies he could see in the orchard.
The day ended up with lots of hula-hooping and lazing in the sunshine chatting with friends, more tea and cake plus a few ciders.
Big thank you as well to Co-op / St Ives Foodshare who partly sponsored the puppet show.