A NEW home as been created for 20,000 honey bees in Winsford.

Two queen bees and their colony have been moved into a new habitat near Compass Minerals and its underground storage subsidiary company, DeepStore.

The bees now live close to a variety of wild flowers and foliage.

Local beekeeper Steven Holt, contacted Compass Minerals last year to see if there was a suitable location for beehives on the company’s property.

In the spring he delivered two hives with 20,000 bees, which under good conditions will grow to around 50,000 bees at the height of the season.

Steven, who will visit every week to tend to the bees, said:“We are looking forward to seeing the bees develop in number and hopefully, with the honeycomb built, we might harvest a few jars,” said Dunn.

Gordon Dunn, managing director at Compass Minerals, said:“We are always keen to help nature and our local environment so when Steven first approached us we thought it was a great idea.

Northwich Guardian:

Craig Trimby, head of sales DeepStore, James Noblett, environmental health, safety and security manager, Charlotte Michell, head of operations DeepStore and Claire Bryant, operations and transport administrator DeepStore

“We had the perfect location, having transformed a patch of waste ground on site into a wildflower garden to celebrate Earth Week last year.”

Thousands of female worker bees and hundreds of male drone bees live in colonies with the queens.

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In addition to pollinating thousands of wild flowers and foliage in their 3.2 km foraging area, they are also attracted to the abundance of salt at the Winsford site, which benefits their own metabolic processes. Bees are the world's most important pollinator of food crops.

It is estimated that one third of the food consumed each day relies on pollination mainly by bees, but also by other insects, birds and bats.