A GROUND-BREAKING project has been set up in East Lancashire to save a native British bee from extinction.

The British black honey bee, which is indigenous to England, has suffered from a dramatic decline in numbers during the 20th century due to Isle of Wight disease.

Now Offshoots Permaculture Project, run by the environmental organisation Groundwork Pennine Lancashire, has set up a two-year programme called Bees in the Borough, which aims to create 200 hives holding 10 million bees.

Volunteers have been taking part in bee-keeping courses in the grounds of Offshoots, at Toweneley Park, Burnley, and will be given hives to keep in their gardens to spread out the bee population.

Bee-friendly plants are also being distributed across local parks.

Groundwork’s resident beekeeper Dave Rayner said: “So far we have given starter colonies to people in the Ribble Valley and will be giving 200 in total to people living in East Lancashire, specifically those who have attended the courses.

“The idea is that we create new starter, smaller colonies with queen bees, drones and workers.

“These will then be given to people to keep in their gardens, hopefully distributing them so the queen is more likely to mate with other bees and so increase the population.

“We are fortunate in Burnley to be surrounded by high moorlands.

"This provides a unique delivery opportunity to sufficiently escalate the black honey bee gene pool without it being diluted as queens and drones go beyond the moorland edges.

"Without the bees we could lose a lot of our native plants.”