Wealden Times | WT258 | November 2023 | Christmas Gift Supplement inside

Garden
Heart
of the
Hive
Sue Whigham finds out about The Buzz Project, an inspirational
initiative set up by Syrian bee expert Dr. Ryad Alsous
One of the last things that Dr.
Ryad Alsous did before he
left his flat in Damascus was
to open one of his windows a fraction.
As the civil war raged, his block of
flats had been bombed twice during
what were daily attacks in the eastern
part of the city. Realising that there
would be no-one to feed the doves
who had shared his balcony for years,
he decided that they should be able to
use his flat as he had no further use for
it. Five years later he asked his cousin
to visit the flat and take a picture for
him. He found it was full of life as the
doves had moved in and had happily
colonised the place. Dr. Alsous felt
it gave him validation to have left to
start a new life in a safe country.
Despite receiving death threats, Dr.
Alsous was the last of his immediate
family to leave Syria and in 2013
he found himself in Huddersfield
where he had relatives who had
settled there over the past forty years.
He found it somewhere where the
community both helped him to
settle in and to rebuild his life.
He is a world renowned expert on
bees and his experience both lecturing
at Damascus University and being Head
of Beekeeping – when he was in charge
of 500 hives – stood him in good
stead when he arrived in the UK. He
began volunteering at the Huddersfield
Beekeeping Association and through
them a lady offered him both a hive
and a colony of British Black Bees. He
then wrote a proposal for The Buzz
Project and met with the then Mayor
of Huddersfield. It was through this
meeting that he was offered a piece
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