The Urban Beekepers of London

Urban beekeepers. Images via 1, 2, 3, 4

There’s been a fair amount of coverage in recent years about the sudden disappearance of honeybees; a catastrophe that is so widespread that beekeepers in Southern California have resorted to stealing one another’s bees. There is at least one place in the world that the men in the white suits and their winged charges are fairing well. That place is London; an epicenter of urban beekeeping.

According to the London Beekeeper’s Association (there is such a wonderfully-named organization) the urban bees are even more prolific producers of honey than their country cousins. An average hive run by an LBKA member reports 70lbs of honey, as opposed to 30 in the countryside; an improvement that the keepers credit to the increases plant selection in the city and suburbs. No doubt the British obsession with the garden has played a role in this as well, further increasing the diversity, and granting a large number of places for the bees to roam in individual backyards.

Of course, London isn’t alone is playing host to environmental rebels who would dare to participate in agriculture in the urban jungle– New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles– all the major metropolitan areas have some innovative man with a hive on the roof of his building, or behind a church, producing honey in an area where it should be impossible. It’s one small bit of nature in a dangerous, loud, concrete world.

Image from pink hats, red shoes

[LBKA][Guardian][Current][Hippyshopper][ColumbiaNews]

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