Summer musings from our ‘BeeGreen’ blogger
Barry, our resident blogger for all things ‘BeeGreen’, returns with some summer musings…
It’s been a while since I last scribbled my musings down. Summer is in full swing here at Nash Farm. We are busy as always trying to improve our green practices.
This month I’d like to talk about our efforts to reduce Honeybuns carbon footprint.
40% of our electricity needs are provided by the solar panels on the big barn roof.
It’s a figure we are proud of. Honeybuns is always looking to improve energy efficiency on our site. We have invested in more storage space to reduce the number of deliveries we need. It helps to bring down the traffic through our lovely village. All our staff are committed “BeeGreeners”. We would love to get more of our team to cycle or walk to Honeybuns, or run if the alarm clock is unheard. I cycle to work regularly. I’m lucky enough to live locally, and take advantage of the leafy lanes around Naish Farm.
Recycling has always been a priority here.
All our cardboard, plastic, paper, tin and foil trays are sorted and recycled. We invested in a compressing machine, which is a little workhorse pressing our paper, plastic, cardboard and aluminium into neat bundles.
It’s our very own WALL-E, only less likely to be a lovelorn robot.
The bundles are collected by a local recycling company. The plastic is sent off to become shiny new bottles and containers.
Paper and cardboard is avidly coveted by paper mills. We try to reuse what we can; Nina our office dynamo uses our old oat sacks as bin bags. Honeybuns has an aim to send nothing to landfill by 2020.
In other green news, Graham the Honeybuns eco wunderkind, has been complying a survey of wildlife on our nature reserve.
He surveyed a square metre in the meadow. We would like to know how the biodiversity across our patch of Dorset is fairing. Graham’s crawly creature results were greenbottle fly, drone fly, common wasp, grasshopper, cricket, shield bug, Spaerophoria Scripta, Sawfly, Harvestman, Wolf Spider, Grass Moth, Bluebottle Fly, Seven Spot Ladybird and froghopper.
The plants and wildflowers in a square metre were:
Broad Leaf Dock, Greater Plantain, Dandelion, White Clover, Perennial Saw Thistle, Smooth Saw Thistle Common Thistle, Oxeye Daisy, Daisy, Bindweed, Creeping Buttercup, Common Nettle and Cranes Bill.
We have been a fan of Brigit Strawbridge Howard for yonks. If you don’t know her, she is a local author and passionate environmental campaigner. Her blog is a treasure trove of information about bees and other pollinators. Bridget writes about her personal connection with nature and how we should all take time to just notice the real world around us. Her book ‘Dancing with Bees’ is out in hardback on the 20th August by Chelsea Green Publishing.
The five bee hives we are hosting on our nature reserve are fairing well this year. Jacqui and Colin visit Naish Farm regularly to check our little stripy guests. We hope to increase our hives to ten in 2020, Honeybuns certainly will be buzzing!
