Kew Garden again

Next stop. Kew! We decided to return to Kew for the rest of the day. The weather was perfect - warm and sunny but not the oppressive heat we experienced the first time. It is such an enormous property that we discovered all sorts of areas we'd missed. The garden's mandate is conservation. There is a team of botanists travelling the world collecting seeds for a heritage collection. They estimate they've gathered seeds from 10% of the world's plants. Their other focus is bees and the health of the bee population. They have a sculpture of a beehive that hums with the actual vibrations of a hive. It was originally in a World's Fair display. You can hear 'bee talk' by holding a wooden stir stick to a post and 'hear' the sounds through your teeth and the bones in your skull. Amazing!!

Palm House - you can walk both under and around the top of the gigantic tropical plants

Demonstration garden - showing plant relationships

Princess Diana Conservatory. The building is enormous and has many 'rooms'. Each room is a different botanical ecosystem - the plants are exotic and amazing - like from another planet. 

Looking up in the beehive sculpture

People sitting inside the hive -listening to the hum

Behive sculpture from a distance