Bee farmer hopes to create a buzz with beehive twinning offer to Peterborough employers

Jez Rose, founder of Bees for Business, in Langtoft, is hoping the venture will appeal to companies seeking to improve their corporate social responsibility credentials.

He said: “Beehive Twinning will give businesses the opportunity to twin works spaces with working honeybee hives located across the UK.

“We’ve made available some of our working honeybee hives at various locations across the country, so that they can be twinned with business reception areas, meeting rooms and even school classrooms, much like you’d twin a town – or even a toilet!

“Businesses can even twin their building or their entire brand with a beehive.”

For a fee starting from £50 to twin a space to £150 to twin a building, Bees for Business will set up a hive and keep it running. In return, depending which grade of twinning the business has chosen, its receives framed certificates, bee-friendly seeds to plant and jars of honey. There are also opportunities to visit the hives.

Mr Rose said: “We hope that businesses which want to be environmentally friendly and engage with corporate social responsibility activities will want to twin with a beehive.

“In doing so, they will help to halt the catastrophic decline of the UK’s honeybee population. Bees are responsible for pollinating one third of the food we eat but the population has been declining drastically.”

Bees for Business has committed to installing 250 new hives across England over the next five years to help reverse the decline of the honeybee.

Earlier this year, it won a Green Tourism gold award for its outstanding commitment to sustainability and a Great Taste award for its Wild Countryside raw honey sold under the brand name Bees & Co.