Can London support more colonies?

[Mellifera397]

Hi all,

I'm looking for advice from London based beekeepers.

I live in the City (Tower Hill) and I want to get back into beekeeping (Some members may remember me from when I kept bees in the North West). Having joined LBKA, the advice seems to be against keeping bees in the City of London so I am seeking recommendations and anecdotal information of other areas in London where people keep their bees and how well their colonies do in those areas.

All advice, suggestions and stories welcomed.

Henry

 

[enrico]

Plenty of flora, especially trees, plenty of people so siting imperative
E

 

[For want of a better word]

I would have thought that if you have access to a rooftop ( preferably flat!) you could keep bees anywhere in the City.... and sell you honey for far higher price than most!!

Chons da

 

[Finman]

.
When I look the yield per hive in London, there are terribly too much hives.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

more to the point - can London take any more people in tweed flat caps, jeans and waistcoats pretending to be countrymen?

 

[Finman]

more to the point - can London take any more people in tweed flat caps, jeans and waistcoats pretending to be countrymen?

You mean homeless men?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You mean homeless men?

No, charmless - or witless

 

[ericbeaumont]

All advice, suggestions and stories welcomed.

Henry, you would imagine that the further bees are from the Square Mile the better the forage and chance of success, but as usual, it depends. By my reckoning many beekeepers in London are novices with one hive; they get little honey because they allow swarming or aren't able or willing to learn fast enough how to make honey; some of them aren't interested in honey but want to connect with nature; some want to connect to nature so closely that they consider swarming natural and approve of it.

Back that up with fairly limited beekeeper knowledge and the road leads inevitably to low reported London honey crops. Some years ago it was 8lb/colony! May have been that poor summer of 2013 when it rained, but I wasn't very experienced and averaged about 55.

By contrast, I know a beekeeper couple who keep a dozen colonies on a roof at the door of the City, at Aldgate, and get plenty of honey because they're two extremely competent and dedicated beekeepers and the bees are within reach of park forage to the East of the City.

There are a few London bee farmers - London Honey Company, Local Honey Man, Bermondsey Bees, Black Bee Honey, Urban Bees - but they don't depend on central London apiaries. One of them lives not far from you in Hackney (he's young, charming, intelligent, beardless and Welsh!) and I recall that LHC Steve Benbow's favourite apiary site is at Dungeness, where Derek Jarman made his garden, and when in better days good fish & chips could be had from the Britannia pub at the end of the spit, next to the power station.

Anyway, your success will depend on two factors: the usual Google Earth site research of forage, access (avoid rooftop beekeeping unless you live under the roof) and security. Secondly, your beekeeping skill and dedication.

 

[gmonag]

...they consider swarming natural...

Err...
It is.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It may be 'natural' but not controlling it, especially in a dense urban environment is just antisocial

 

[Madge]

Err...
It is.

You’re quoting out of context! Read Eric’s full sentence.

 

[citrus]

Hi all,

I'm looking for advice from London based beekeepers.

I live in the City (Tower Hill) and I want to get back into beekeeping (Some members may remember me from when I kept bees in the North West). Having joined LBKA, the advice seems to be against keeping bees in the City of London so I am seeking recommendations and anecdotal information of other areas in London where people keep their bees and how well their colonies do in those areas.

All advice, suggestions and stories welcomed.

Henry

I work near moorgate (well did pre-covid19 and my pc I am remoted to is there )

I discussed having hives on the flat roof at work and it might yet 'get off the ground' ...pun intended.

Can you imagine the look on the uber driver with a small hive in the back when I moved it to the out apiary (my van isnt ULEZ)

 

[ericbeaumont]

I work near moorgate

Moorgate? Took a few swarms there over the years, on a hanging basket next to Bloombergs, on a wall up the road from Bloombergs... get the idea? Bloombergs pay a London beekeeper to manage hives for the green credentials. The hanging basket one came out during a June nectar and rain drought and were vicious (guess it may have been a starvation swarm).

I discovered that the average City worker's street journey is robotic in the extreme and that they have limited interest in anything other than the pursuit of lucre or lunch: they truly did not see the cones or tape put out by the security blokes and walked past swarms without seeing a bee. Disturbing, but then I heard that if the City was a person it would be described as a psychopath.

City rooftop apiaries get white-hot in the summer and very bitterly windy in the winter; access is usually awful and security want you to jump through hoops and access times are limited. I went to look at a former project three floors up at Shoreditch and found two empty WBCs in good nick, but with feet buried so deep into the tarmac that they were immovable. Benefit was that it would have taken a tornado to blow them off, because there was nothing else to secure them.

 

[citrus]

Moorgate? Took a few swarms there over the years, on a hanging basket next to Bloombergs, on a wall up the road from Bloombergs... get the idea? Bloombergs pay a London beekeeper to manage hives for the green credentials. The hanging basket one came out during a June nectar and rain drought and were vicious (guess it may have been a starvation swarm).

I discovered that the average City worker's street journey is robotic in the extreme and that they have limited interest in anything other than the pursuit of lucre or lunch: they truly did not see the cones or tape put out by the security blokes and walked past swarms without seeing a bee. Disturbing, but then I heard that if the City was a person it would be described as a psychopath.

City rooftop apiaries get white-hot in the summer and very bitterly windy in the winter; access is usually awful and security want you to jump through hoops and access times are limited. I went to look at a former project three floors up at Shoreditch and found two empty WBCs in good nick, but with feet buried so deep into the tarmac that they were immovable. Benefit was that it would have taken a tornado to blow them off, because there was nothing else to secure them.

Well with covid shaking up the banking world ... our moorgate office might end up being shuttered for the long term and any plans for being paid to do IT and some glamour bee hives might get scrapped !