• Royal Bolton Hospital discovered impressive honeybee in office building
• Thousands of honey bees safely relocated to local hive ahead of cold winter months

A colony of bees have been safely rehomed after staff at Royal Bolton Hospital discovered the remarkable nest in one of the site’s office buildings.

Thousands of honey bees had formed an impressive colony attached to Dowling House and it was quickly decided that action needed to be taken to ensure the colony’s survival before the colder season set in.

Fred Adedeji, a local beekeeper based in Wigan, took on the challenge to safely relocate the colony of honeybees.

Fred said:

We prefer to do colony cut-outs earlier in the season, however we couldn’t leave this one as it was over a doorway and likely wouldn’t survive the winter in an unprotected location.

“The colony is now in one of our hives so we can keep a close eye on it and help it to thrive.

On a second visit to the site, it became apparent that there was another colony of bees within a cavity wall. This was expertly and extremely carefully handled to get all the bees to another sustainable hive.

It’s no secret that bees are an integral part of the food chain and they are sadly in severe decline in the UK due to habitat loss, pollution and climate change.

This highlights the importance of the work that Fred and his team at Fred’s Bees undertake on a daily basis. The general advice if you find a swarm of bees or colony is to contact a beekeeper and get the swarm collected and hived. If swarms are left in situ it can result in a costly and disruptive removal.

Keely Barlow, iFM Customer Services Lead at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said:

When we realised there was a colony of bees, we knew we had to act to make sure the bees were able to get through the winter.

“Fred has been wonderful, knowledgeable and the utter professional. We are so glad the bees have been rehomed safely.

The Woodland Trust website is a great source of advice and information around the importance of bees and what we can all to help them.