The Monmouth Bee Festival was opened by the new mayor of Monmouth, Alice Fletcher, who was invited to cut the ribbon by Dr Nicola Bradbear, director of Bees for Development.

The number of activities and creative things to do at this year’s Festival was triple what it was last year. Pottery, art classes, beekeeping talks, and demos gave families the chance to spend the whole day on Chippenham Fields. There were plenty of food options with the old school sweet stall of Granny Brown’s and local family run Brookes Ice-cream being particularly popular. The number of stallholders had also doubled, meaning that the event has grown into a fully-fledged festival and an important weekend in the annual calendar for the people of Monmouth.

The festival, whose main sponsor was Mandarin Stone, was manned by volunteers from the charity and the Bees for Development marquee featured the honeycomb walls which won a silver award at RHS Chelsea. Millbrook Nursery kindly lent the fruit trees and pollinator friendly plants which decorated the tent. Monmouth Bee Festival organiser, Emily Cullum said: “As always there are so many people to thank. The gardeners of Monmouth for their open gardens on Saturday, the newly ordained Dan Damon for presenting, the additional sponsors Azets and Tri-Wall and the stall holders for making up the body of the festival. But most of all, the people of Monmouth for coming and making the most of the event. Community integrity and engagement in the environment are two important issues. Next year, we want to make the festival even more significant for the town.”

The high street competition to win a hamper from the Bee Shop was won by The Blue Cross for their wonderful bee themed window display. The campaign to raise funds to purchase a truck which will collect honey from remote beekeepers attracted a lot of interest and will continue to run until they have reached the target of £15,000. If you would like to contribute to the campaign, find out more about Bees for Development or get involved in the planning of the Monmouth Bee Festival for 2023, please ask for Emily at the charity HQ behind the Bee Shop or email [email protected].