Staff from St Georges with the hive

A Preston shopping centre has been welcoming some unusual visitors – a colony of bees.

More than 60,000 English honey bees have been housed on the rooftop of the St George’s shopping centre.

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Preston Bee Keeping Association have installed two hives on the roof, after the shopping centre decided to invest £1,000 in creating the rooftop hive.

Andrew Stringer, General Manager at St George’s Shopping Centre said: “We recently assessed key areas of our environmental performance including our water waste and energy output which has led to improvements in our sustainability programme.

“As part of this we found that bees are able survive more easily in an urban setting due to a lack of pesticide use. After consulting with Preston Bee Association, it was clear that our building provides the perfect environment for bees to thrive.

“The decline of the honey bee is a well-documented problem and projects like this all help to keep this important species part of the regional habitat to help drive Preston’s crop production.”

Wild flowers and shrubs have also been added to the roof.