OCCUPIERS at one of Lanarkshire’s biggest business hubs - Strathclyde Business Park, managed by HFD Property Management Services -have introduced on-site bee keeping as part of an ongoing commitment to creating sustainable workplaces.

The partnership with Plan Bee - a company that aims to protect and preserve the UK’s honeybee population - is just one of the measures that form part of a wider environmental commitment at Strathclyde Business Park.

The hub is now home to four beehives and up to 500,000 bees.

And members of staff, school groups and the local community are being invited to get involved with the bee keeping and honey making process.

Employees will also be able to sample the bespoke honey created from the hives.

As pollinators, bees play a crucial role in the ecosystem, with the insects responsible for one in every three bites of food we eat.

But they are facing an ongoing threat from changing land use and habitat loss.

Strathclyde Business Park say their conservation efforts aim to support the local bumblebee population and help address a major environmental concern.

The wider sustainable focus for the park includes efforts to support employees to choose environmentally friendly means of transport, with new electric car charging points and increased bike storage facilities.

Alison Bell, operations manager at Plan Bee, said: “It’s great to work with forward-thinking, eco-conscious companies to address some of the pressing environmental concerns that affect us all and to create a generation of biodiversity champions. 

"The collaborative partnerships at Strathclyde Business Park demonstrate how businesses can work together to make a positive impact, even greater than the sum of their parts.

"Although, we are just at the beginning of a long-term partnership, we’ve really set a benchmark for how companies can look after their environment, their people and the communities in which they work.”

The number of honey bee colonies fell by 16% in the winter of 2017-18, according to an international study led by the University of Strathclyde.

The survey of 25,363 beekeepers in 36 countries found that, out of 544,879 colonies being managed at the start of winter, 89124 were lost, through a combination of circumstances including various effects of weather conditions, unsolvable problems with a colony's queen, and natural disaster.

Rosemary Hill, managing director at HFD Property Management Services which manages the business park, added: “It’s important that we work together to make sustainability a focus for the whole community, including the 6,000 employees that work at the park. 

"We’re working on an ongoing programme of initiatives to offset our carbon footprint and create a sustainable working environment. We’re excited to see how the partnership with Plan Bee progresses and, with scope to introduce more beehives in future, we hope that this is just the first step in supporting the local ecosystem.”