Actions we will take together

There is no lead partner in Get Calderdale Buzzing! We’ll all support each other and do what we can. Depending on the resources available, members will act to make the habitat where we live or work more bee-friendly by:

– Restoring and creating wildflower-rich habitats, scrub and woodland, in both rural and urban environments, that will contribute to the creation of the Calderdale B-Line.

– Changing maintenance regimes for grassed areas in parks, housing estates and other green spaces to encourage wildflowers to grow and flower. This may also save time and money.

– Making our gardens, allotments, school grounds and other greenspaces more attractive and useful to pollinators; and encouraging bee ‘hotels’, bee banks and habitat for nesting wild bees in gardens.

– Recording the presence of individual pollinator species.

– Raising awareness of the great job pollinators do for us, and increasing community involvement in the natural world.

– Providing information, activities and events, training and resources, sites for habitat improvement, and opportunities for action and enjoyment.

What can YOU do to help Get Calderdale Buzzing? If you’d like to join the Partnership, or find out more about it, just contact: countryside@calderdale.gov.uk tell us what you’re already doing or planning to do, what actions you’d like to suggest, and what contribution you could make to the project.

And here are just some of the responses we’ve had before our launch.

Bee Incredible of Todmorden said:

“We do basic beekeeper training and promote conservation of all bees and pollinators. We also promote a more balanced way of honeybee keeping and encourage the formation of group bee keeping with low intervention. Some of our members have planted wild flowers in the verges around Todmorden and given seeds out at shows and festivals. We took part in an open day at Todmorden High School last year talking to the children about pollination. We are organising a conference which will be held on the weekend of 16th and 17th August at Brinscall Hall near Chorley. We have a speaker Carl Clee who will be speaking about solitary bees and David Raynor speaking about the black bee project he runs at Offshoot Burnley.”

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust said:

“Not doing that much in Calderdale at the moment but across the border in Kirklees we are restoring wild flower meadows on our 200 acre Stirley Community Farm, and additionally we have a project called Blooming Meadows working with local authorities across Kirklees, Calderdale, and Wakefield restoring wildflower meadows (cutting, seed harvesting, and green hay translocation etc) – the main purpose of this project was to set up a machinery ring which all partners could utilise. We also have a number of Coronation Meadows Project sites across West Yorkshire. Additionally we have set up a bee hive at Stirley community Farm and have been facilitating bee keeping training courses at the farm.”

Upper Calderdale Wildlife Network said:

“Members of the group are already involved in surveying and recording local meadows that are of interest for biodiversity and /or under threat and we would also be interested in helping to advise on managing areas for biodiversity and the promotion of pollinators.”