The recent hot weather has been perfect for the growth of orchids, with a bumper number being spotted around Essex & Suffolk Water’s Hanningfield Reservoir near Chelmsford so far this year.
More than 60 of the bee orchid have been spotted by the water company’s Conservation team, with many rare examples doing much better than expected after recent survey work was carried out.
Essex & Suffolk Water has also been busy planting new wild flower meadows and now has nearly an acre in bloom at the water treatment works next to Hanningfield Reservoir.
Alex Mueller, conservation advisor for Essex & Suffolk Water has been leading the project to plant more wildflowers at the company’s water treatment sites and she said: “Bees need our help at the moment and we thought as a company with lots of grassland areas we might be able to improve the diversity of flowers for the insects helping them to thrive.”
