There are many hotels in Preston that are available to stay in for business and pleasure, but now there is a new five-star hotel that is a very exclusive and only welcomes a certain kind of guest… bees!
Stirk House, the Ribble Valley offers special facilities to help give declining bee numbers a big boost.
The efforts are part of an initiative started by Strik House’s owner Paul Caddy. Paul wants to highlight the plight of the bee and is also aiming to help protect other species through projects such as planting of more than 5,000 indigenous trees.
Mr Caddy said: “Bees are the unsung heroes of the food chain. Most fresh fruit and vegetables depend on bees for pollination.
“Our new bee hotel is designed to provide the perfect habitat for some important wild bee varieties, allowing the friendly insects to check in and make their homes.
“We hope that by opening our bee hotel we’ll be able to help rejuvenate the local bee population, and ensure our allotments continue to supply the hotel restaurant with lots of fresh, locally-grown produce.”
250 species of bee can be found in the British countryside but changes to land management and agriculture mean that a specialist of cavity-nesting bees cannot find enough places to nest.
Man-made bee hotels such as the one at Strik House, offers an alternative and provides nesting sites for the next generation of bees.
Mr Caddy said: “We recognise that if we are to continue to source fresh local produce in the long term, we are going to have to look at protecting our wildlife, and do our bit to help solve the problem.”
Blackburn and East Lancashire Beekeepers’ Association member Phil Ainsworth said that he hoped the bee hotel would help give the bee population in the area the boost that it needs.
He said: “Anything that helps promote bees and gives the public information about them can only be very good. We definitely need these things and we also need a multi-pronged approach to help bees.
“Areas where bees can go and be looked after are very important for their long-term future.”