Handbags Over "Bee Bling" In London

[djg]

Sorry that this duplicates earlier thread...I looked long and hard before posting, but missed it. Apologies !

The BBC has picked up on a disagreement between London beekeepers...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19913180

There may be too many bees in the capital, the London Beekeepers Association (LBKA) has said.

The association has criticised an initiative by a business group offering hives to central London firms.

InMidtown, which represents firms in Holborn, Bloomsbury and St Giles, said its scheme had seen a 40% increase in honey produced in the last year.

But the LBKA dismissed the project as "bee bling" saying firms should focus their spending on planting forage.

LBKA secretary Angela Woods said: "There are a finite number of green spaces in London. It could get to the point where the bees are not sustainable.

"London's bee population is going up but honey yields in London are going down and we need to ask is it because there is not enough forage."

InMidtown said it had doubled its bee hives from four to eight, introduced more plants and increased its honey produced to 37lbs (16.8kg), bucking the national trend.

The total honey crop for England and Wales is estimated to be down 50% on an average year, which equates to a loss of £7m for UK honey production, according to a recent survey carried out by the Bee Farmers' Association (BFA).

London Wildlife Trust reserves manager Tom Hayward, said: "We are really encouraged by InMidtown's commitment to help 30 businesses in their district of London to install bee hives and to plant pollinator friendly plants. "

But LBKA said latest government figures showed the number of officially registered bee colonies in the capital had increase from 1,617 in 2008 to 3,337 in 2012.

Ms Woods said: "We may have too many bees in London.

"We are consulting environmental organisations and academics to look at ways to get credible data to find out what's really happening.

"Firms would be better off spending money on forage projects and teaching bee keepers to act responsibly."

An InMidtown spokesman said: "Our team that led this scheme has been trained and guided by sustainability experts to ensure the flower to bee ratio is right before any hives are installed.

"We are very happy with how this scheme is being managed and the interest from businesses in the district to participate this year."

Discuss...

 

[eleanor20]

I didn't really think that 37lbs of honey from 8 hives was very impressive! In a good year wouldn't most rural beekeepers expect more than that from each hive?

 

[Der Alte Fritz]

Sounds slightly unbelivable that 3,400 hives could not be accommodated in London.
The 32 London Boroughs and the City of London house 7,700,000 people with an average household of 2.3 of whom 60% live in houses and have gardens. This would give about 2 million gardens within Greater London

That equates to around 600 gardens per hive.
Low yields might be more to local over stocking where companies congregate whereas the suburbs might be short of hives.

To look at it another way, London is approximately 50 miles wide by 50 mile across. That is 2500 sq miles and if 3,400 hives evenly spread would give you 1.4 hives per sq mile. In East Sussex the stocking density is around 35 hives within a radius of 10km which I work out to be around 0.3 hives per sq mile. However this is comparing rural farmland which these days is rather short of forgae with gardens which are somewhat better.

 

[Tom Bick]

Don’t mix up greater London with central London as the two are worlds apart.

 

[johnandyrob]

There must be more places than just gardens bees can forage in I would have though there was parks and railway embankments for a start maybe not I haven't been to London since I was Eight.

 

[richardbees]

"Don’t mix up greater London with central London as the two are worlds apart."

- you probably want to re-phrase that

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Sounds slightly unbelivable that 3,400 hives could not be accommodated in London.
The 32 London Boroughs and the City of London house 7,700,000 people with an average household of 2.3 of whom 60% live in houses and have gardens. This would give about 2 million gardens within Greater London

.

Do cannabis flowers give pollen though?

 

[Der Alte Fritz]

Don’t mix up greater London with central London as the two are worlds apart.

No I was not mixing up the City of London (The Lord Mayor), the Inner London Boroughs (or 12 Metropolitan Boroughs) (The Mayor of London) both of which are covered by LBKA and the Outer London Boroughs which make up the Greater London Authority.

But I could not find any statistics on land use that matched anything other than Greater London and then could not find the number of hives used by the County Associations like Kent who cover Outer London Boroughs such as Bromley Dartford, etc.

Of course, the Inner London Boroughs are quite small, it is only around 3 miles from the Thames to Islington. So the hive in St Giles could have bees foraging in Belsize Park and the one in Bloomsbury could forage all the way from Regents Park all the way to Hampstead. There are plenty of suburban gardens here.

My main point was that local stocking density might be the issue rather than an overall shortage of forage