The 24 wooden bees and hive are the latest addition to the trail at the Woodland Trust Scotland’s Moncreiffe Hill wood, which includes a treetop fox, spiders and a giant musical dragonfly.
They are part of a £20,000 project to improve Woodland Trust Scotland woods in Perth and Kinross funded by the Gannochy Trust.
The sculptures have been fashioned from different kinds of wood including yew, oak and silver birch, some of which was sourced from fallen branches from Moncreiffe Hill.
Kirsty Dalton, a 4th year fine art student at Duncan Jordanstone College of College of Art and Design in Dundee worked on the bees over the summer, turning the bodies on a wood lathe and cutting out the wings before paragraphing the detail using a heated pen.
She said: “I chose bees as my project because I wanted to make people aware of insects that are becoming endangered. Bees are really important for the environment and we need to pay attention to their situation.
“It’s fantastic to see my work in place among the trees for everyone to see.”
Site manager Jill Aitken said: “Thanks to funding from the Gannochy Trust we’ve been able to make improvements to many of our woods in Perth and Kinross.
“The new sculptures at Moncreiffe make a great addition to the trail and I’m sure they will prove really popular with visitors.”
Other work within the Woodlands of Perthshire project includes restoration of the rare raised bog habitat at Portmoak Moss and a new car park at Huntly Wood near Dundee, as well as path upgrades, leaflets and information boards across the other sites.
