THERE’S a buzz about Notre Dame High School — as pupils have been ‘busy bees’ making their own honey.

Twenty jars of the sticky sweet treat have been produced by a team of budding young beekeepers who have spent months looking after 60,000 bees in three hives outside the school.

The innovative project — thought to be one of only a few in the country — has proved such a success that the pupils are now poised to sell their honey.

Dressed in his specially protective bee suit, Christopher Wylie, 14, says it has been fascinating.

The third year pupil told the Tele: “I was involved in going out and looking after them.

“It was quite nerve-wracking to begin with but you wear suits so it was fine.

“Our job was to make sure that the Queen bee was ok, to clean a tray that collects rubbish and dead bees and to feed the bees a sugary syrup.

“It was great to see the finished product of our work.” Twelve-year-old Aleksandra Smolira created the eye catching label which appears on the honey jars.

She said: “There was a competition in our tech class to design the label.

“At first I found to it hard to come up with an idea but then I thought of fields and where bees come from and it all fell into place.

“I was really happy when my label was chosen.

“I’ve taken a jar of honey home and my family really like it.

“They say it tastes really good.” It was depute head teacher and keen beekeeper Stephen Dalziel who set up the project, with the help of biology teacher Stuart MacDougall.

Mr Dalziel said: “Because I keep bees I thought it would be a good idea to get the pupils involved in a similar project.

“So we decided to buy some equipment and the technology department built the hives.

“We also involved the home economics department in the honey extraction process, as well as the technical department in the design of the labels, so the whole school was involved.” Mr MacDougall says the bee-keepingproject is a fantastic educational tool.

He said: “This ties in with National 5 Biology, as one of the assignments is about the effect that pesticides have on honey bees.” The pupils will start collecting honey again in May and then plan to sell their produce.