The project focuses on Bees and pollinators and has involved:

• Bringing bees to campus. For the first time in years beehives are now situated on Swansea University campus and there are now 6 hives which are owned by staff and external individuals.
• Creation of a webpage on the University sustainability pages to highlight the work achieved and raise awareness of biodiversity/honey bees.
• Sourcing a 100% native UK wildflower seed mix for pollinators which was RHS approved and sourced a site on campus for the planting of a wildflower meadow (due for planting early 2015)

and holding an informative honey bee day on 20^th August for staff and students which was well attended and over-subscribed with attendance from many of the south Wales bee societies. The day was a success and there is hope of creating a bee-society at some point in the future.

The team have created a sustainability project which aims to improve biodiversity on campus through the introduction of honey bees and hives on campus and the planting of a native wildflower meadow as a potential nectar source for the bees and to increase flora and fauna diversity.

The second phase of the project is aimed at communicating, engaging and raising awareness of these new biodiversity initiatives and to encourage staff to visit the biological gardens on campus where these initiatives have been introduced.

This was achieved through a 'bee-event' workshop in the university consisting of a series of talks and practical demonstration sessions, creating a webpage and establishing a new bee society and working group.

Welcoming the Award Technical Officer Anouska Mendzil said:  

“ We are delighted that the NUS Green Impact Excellence Awards have recognised and rewarded the Swansea University SEACAMS ((Sustainable Expansion of the Applied Coastal and Marine Sectors in Wales) team once again for its sustainability projects.

“ The Green Impact Universities and Colleges Excellence Award is a yearlong reward project that allows teams who have achieved a Green Impact Gold Standard for two consecutive years to take a year’s break from the workbook. The Excellence framework will give our  teams the opportunity to work creatively on bigger picture sustainability initiatives, with specialist support and guidance from NUS and their environmental/sustainability department. The SEACAMS team received a Gold award in the two consecutive years of 2012 and 2013.”

• For more information on BeeCAMS go to http://www.swansea.ac.uk/sustainability/biodiversity/ 
• For more information on SEACAMS go to http://www.swansea.ac.uk/seacams 

Picture 1: Demonstration hive – A demonstration hive at the bee-event. The queen-bee can be identified by the green mark.

Picture 2: Team photo  - at the bee-day event from left: Chiara Bertelli (SEACAMS), James (participant), Anouska Mendzil (SEACAMS), Christine Gray (SEACAMS), Ian Dodkins (SEACAMS) and Julian Caruana (participant).

Picture 3: Excellence Award – The award presented to the BeeCAMS team.