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About Pharmabees

The Universityʼs award winning Pharmabees project can trace its roots back to Dr Jenny Hawkins, a former student of the School of Pharmacy who in 2015 completed a PhD entitled ʻApothecary Bees: Using the bee as a tool for drug discovery.' (Read More) Jenny discovered a ʻsuper honeyʼ from Tywyn in North Wales which killed hospital super-bugs and determined that this activity was due in part to specific plants which the bees visited during foraging. To recreate this super honey, we installed bee hives on the roof of the Redwood building and surrounded the building with the Tywyn plants to provide germ killing food to the bees (Read More).

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Like bees swarming, this idea has spread across the university campus resulting in the installation of hives on four university buildings to date. To support these extra bees, we have planted over 1,000m2 of pollinator friendly, carbon-sequestering plants. The Pharmabees project is part of the Universityʼs Environmental Sustainability Strategy Read More. To explain the importance of this work to our community, we have created a website highlighting how university research is having a real-world impact Read More. In recognition of these efforts, the University was awarded bee friendly status by the Welsh Assembly Government and in 2017 received a number of national awards which included sustainability awards from the Guardian and Sustain Wales.

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