Green Monday: Catching up with Manchester’s bee whisperer

Dear readers — welcome to your Monday newsletter. Today’s edition is devoted to those who use their spare time to make the city greener and brighter. We met a local beekeeper who has plenty of helpful tips for how to best design your garden around supporting the city’s bee population, plus, we spoke to the city council’s dedicated volunteer officer who gives out free bulbs and other gardening materials to those wanting to start their own community garden.

A warm welcome to those of you who joined us as paying members after Joshi’s editor’s note yesterday, which told the inside story of how we reported the strange goings on at the University of Greater Manchester. Our reporting, originally described as “vexatious” by the university’s media relations consultant, has now resulted in the university suspending its vice chancellor of 20 years, George Holmes, and Greater Manchester Police launching a criminal investigation. 

Catch up and coming up

Last week, we published a particularly excellent run of stories, if we do say so ourselves:

• A solemn time at the University of Greater Manchester, which just suspended its vice chancellor of 20 years, George Holmes, following “serious allegations”. Two other senior staff members have been suspended, and Greater Manchester Police confirms it has launched a criminal investigation.
• Aviva Studios, which cost twice its original budget and arrived four years late, might not be a colossal waste of money after all. Theatre critic Holly Williams writes that its latest show, weaving a famous Radiohead album with the Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet, is “an urgent, often thrilling production”. 
• And a fascinating deep dive into the life of Showmen in Bolton, by our very own Ophira. “We want to move somewhere where the air’s fresher anyway,” Henry shrugs when I ask about the potential eviction, looking around at the fairground storage yard. “It doesn’t look great around here.” Prefer to listen? You can hear Ophira telling the story by clicking the player below.

⛅️ This week’s weather

Tuesday ☀️ Dry and pleasantly warm with long spells of sunshine accompanied by light winds. 21°C.

Wednesday 🌦️ Quite warm with variable cloud amounts and sunny spells. Isolated showers will break out during the afternoon. 19°C.

Thursday 🌦️ Cooler with large amounts of cloud cover and isolated showers. Breezy. 17°C.

Friday 🌤️ Pleasant and mostly dry with plenty of sunny spells. 19°C.

Weekend 🌦️ Breezy and changeable with periods of rain, although there will be part days where the weather is fair. Feeling cool.

We get our weekly forecast from Manchester Weather.

Your briefing

🐝 It being World Bee Day tomorrow, we went and spoke to Tommy from Honey and Leaf — the honey provider for various certified Mancunian Establishments: Pollen, Skof, Winsome (ok that’s not a certified establishment, but it’s the same guy from Edinburgh Castle), and Village Greens Co Op in Prestwich. Tommy is even collaborating with Pomona Island Brew Co in making a honey and wild yeast beer. He’s given us his best tips for growing a garden (or window box or balcony) to help your local Mancunian pollinators. Firstly, and we’re a little late to the game with this one, he recommends taking part in no-mow May (I’m sure that no-mow June will suffice). If you have a lawn, either let it be for a month, or otherwise only mow part of it — you can leave a tall border, or like Tommy, simply mow yourself a path through the grass. Every autumn, you can plant wildflower plug-plants, which tend to catch on better than seeds. He recommends starting with Yellow Rattle, otherwise and somewhat ominously known as ‘Meadow Maker’, which weakens the grass and opens up space in which your wildflowers can grow. And when thinking of food for your neighbourhood bees, it works to think of food for yourself. Flowering herbs — rosemary, mint, and lavender — are great for honey-makers, and so are berry bushes and fruit trees: red and blackcurrants, raspberries, strawberries, apples, plums, and cherries. Plants of different varieties, and also different heights, are essential in maintaining a wide ecosystem. Tommy’s last tip is to bin off weedkillers, and to reconsider your biases about what a weed really is. You can always view weeds as wildflowers — “and scruffy can be beautiful,” Tommy says.

🍞 Zoë Bread, a viral TikTok star who retains anonymity by hiding her face behind a slice of bread, has declared victory in her war against Manchester City Council. In a video published in April, Bread showed how the council had placed signs directing parkers to pay at a private parking meter rather than the council’s own — causing drivers to pay for a parking ticket, and still get fined by the council. Bread claimed the signs were deliberately misleading, as the council earns through the fines, and the private parking company earns through the tickets. On a recorded phone call, council leader Bev Craig told Bread that while it is “my view that the signs are legally compliant”, they could be “better” and therefore a new sign and a new meter will be installed.

🌿 Despite all the scepticism of Manchester’s green credentials, work is truly beginning to make the city much more green. Manchester City Council now employs an officer dedicated to helping community garden projects tend to their hedgerows and wildflowers, and the council also offers free bulbs and other gardening materials to any city centre residents or businesses looking to spruce up or start their own community gardens. Recent projects include a new community garden at the artisan doughnut café Siop Shop, gardening clubs every Tuesday and Thursday at Altogether Otherwise, and the council says there’s growing interest from residents in creating their own ginnel gardens. “These are people who all volunteer their free time to make the city look better and make it feel better, and we try and support that however we can, which is really rewarding to do,” says William White, Manchester City Council’s engagement and delivery officer. Plus: “People are always happy to get free stuff.” If you’d like to ask the council about some free bulbs and gardening materials or receive some logistical help creating your own community garden, just email inbloom@manchester.gov.uk.

💸 There’s more trouble at the mill for David Jenkins, an arts director in Wigan who is listed on Companies House as the director of Arts at the Mill CIC and Square Chapel CIC. In 2023, we reported that Arts at the Mill CIC, responsible for running operations at the Old Courts Theatre in Wigan, had their funding suspended by the Arts Council and the GMCA. The Arts Council launched an investigation, which Jenkins told us was the result of “lies and mistruths” by an aggrieved ex employee with an “agenda” to bring his organisation down. In November that year, the Arts Council reinstated funding to Arts at the Mill CIC after receiving reassurances that conditions of funding would be met. But now, it looks like the Arts Council has pulled funding from Square Chapel CIC, the group run by Jenkins that operates in the beautiful historic Square Chapel building in Halifax, which has been closed for the last two months. The Arts Council says it is aware that the organisation “has been facing financial challenges” but that it “cannot comment further”. Know more about this story? Get in touch.

🍸 Sammy’s Bar has a very particular reputation in Manchester. In December, we published a story asking why the retro-styled cocktail bar had deleted dozens of negative Google reviews accusing the owner of throwing out customers in violent rages, and raising questions about why “the crowd is really bizarrely all young and all female”, in the words of one source. (Sammy Shonn, the bar's owner, didn't reply to our requests for comment). According to those in the know, since a viral Reddit thread was published on 28 April where some disturbing allegations came to light, the bar has been closed and has not reopened for service since 29 April. We’re looking into this story and would like to know more — if you have any information, please email Mollie.

🎤 Chris Brown was arrested at the Lowry Hotel in the early hours of Thursday morning and is now remanded in custody, reports The Times. He is accused of attacking a music producer in a London nightclub two years ago, has been denied bail and will appear at Southwark Crown Court in London on 13 June. The triple platinum R&B singer, who was convicted of domestic violence against his partner Rihanna in 2009, was due to start his world tour on 8 June, which included two nights at Co-op Live.

Quick hits

🐛 The National Trust are offering drop in gardening workshops this week to encourage city centre dwellers to turn their balconies into little urban gardens. Book here — you can go along to workshops in Salford, Hulme and Oldham, totally free of charge.

💰 Since last year, local gambling moguls Fred and Peter Done have seen their fortune jump from £2.38bn to £2.915bn, making them among the wealthiest individuals in the North West, according to the 2025 Sunday Times Rich List.

🌸 It’s Manchester Flower Festival this weekend. A flower market will be at New Cathedral Street all weekend, and flower artworks will be scattered around the city centre. Plus, there's free flower crafting sessions — you can find out more here.

🏛️ Laszlo Matus, 52, has appeared in court charged with sex trafficking Hungarian women across Bolton, Blackburn and Birmingham. Matus denies the charges.

📈 Average monthly rent in Manchester has risen from £820 in 2020 to £1,143, according to Rightmove.

Home of the week 

This four bedroom home perched on a hill in Bolton “enjoys a stunning flow throughout”, with an oval stone bath overlooking the garden. £900,000.

Our favourite reads

The Manchester recreation spot where people play above 80,000 dead bodies — The Manchester Evening News 

We thought this was an interesting piece in the MEN, delving into the history of Ardwick Cemetery. Opened in the 1830s, interred there are John Dalton and Manchester’s first mayor Sir John Botter. Amongst its 80,000 burials are also many of the working-class children that died during Manchester’s industrial revolution, when infant mortality rates in the lower classes were tragically high. Throughout its lifetime (for want of a better phrase) the cemetery has been in and out of a state of dilapidation and ruin. But most recently, it’s a community football centre. “The sounds of cheers and footballs being kicked echo over the remains of some 80,000 of the city's citizens.”

The Ghosts of Glasgow — The Bell

Our colleague Moya Lothian-McLean untangles the web of connections within her eminently Scottish-sounding surname. Although, as she writes: “Neither of my parents possess the brogue that earmarks a Scot as ‘wan o’ us’.” The search has McLean tracing the story of both her family and Glasgow as a city, both leading to unfortunate truths: the colonial history that brought her ancestors to the Clyde, and the decline of Glasgow that leads to perceived out-of-towners (like McLean by the time she arrived late last year) being blamed. Plus: a strange twist in her mission to hunt down her ancestor John McLean that leads her to Little Lever in Bolton. (The Bell are hiring: Apply here to be their new editor.)

The Guardian view on better public transport for the north: good politics and good economics — The Guardian

“The return of Greater Manchester’s buses to public stewardship has been a standout success story, at a time when faith in the power of politics to improve lives is at an alarming low,” the Guardian writes in this editorial, lauding the city region as the lodestar for other northern towns and cities looking to boost its public transport networks. Tracey Brabin, mayor of West Yorkshire, is set to launch a cloned system in Leeds (although branded with a white rose, rather than a bee). While a success, we wonder what readers have made of the Bee Network revolution thus far. If you have thoughts, make them in the comments.

Our to do list

Tuesday

🎨 Women in Revolt! is a stunning exhibition at the Whitworth that explores the violent experiences and quiet humiliations that gave rise to the women’s liberation movement. It’s showing for one more week.

☕ The Philosophy Café meets at Manchester Art Gallery every month to explore life’s big questions. No need to book, just turn up.

Wednesday

🍷 Have a natural wine at Kerb in Ancoats and enjoy their latest exhibition, a display of works by illustrator Matthew Wood, who paints smudgy but detailed portraits of people dining and drinking together.

🍊 Authors Karolina Ramqvist (Bread and Milk) and Katie Goh (Foreign Fruit) will be in conversation with Ruby Martin (our bakery crawl piece) at Blackwell’s Manchester.

Thursday

🍴Soots at Altrincham Market are hosting a supper club — five Italian-inspired courses for £45. Expect traditional dishes with twists: “laminated bread” and “basil gel”.

👣 And as part of the GM Walking Festival, you can attend a wander round Moston Brook and Rochdale Canal with NEPHRA Good Neighbours social group.