London has reached its peak bee capacity

It is widely assumed that honey bees are in decline, and by installing beehives on the rooftops of buildings you are playing your part in helping the environment. In reality, the density of the bee population in London has reached such a peak, that many established beekeepers in the capital are dissuading people from adding more apiaries. Instead they are encouraging the planting of bee friendly forage to increase the sustainability of beekeeping in London.

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Dale Gibson set up Bermondsey Street Bees in 2007. His business had relocated from North to South London, and to an old Victorian warehouse on Bermondsey Street which had the ideal set-up on the roof to keep bees and the surrounding area provided plenty of forage. He manages hives across South London and produces award-winning artisan honey that that won ‘Best Honey in London at the 2017 National Honey Show.

 

“What’s changing and is still changing is that rather than plonking hives down on your roof, sustainability is the key factor as awareness of the forage situation in London becomes more widespread. One of our straplines at Bermondsey Street Bees is that it’s better to be a planter of bees than a plonker.”

 

Dale says that by using estimated figures provided by the British Bee Keepers Association (BBKA), it is possible to get a picture of the London bee population. For example, around the Bermondsey Street Bee hives there around 679 other apiaries within a 10km radius. The number of hives per apiary is around four, so if you multiply 679 by 4 you get roughly 2700 hives. The BBKA also suggest that around 25% of beekeepers don’t register – maybe because they are here illegally or they don’t think it’s the government’s business to know about their hives. So that gives a figure of 3395 hives within a 10km radius of Bermondsey Street Bees and each hive, according to the BBKA, has anywhere between 5,000 and 35,000 bees in it.  These bees need pollen and nectar to make honey; which used to build the hive, rear their young, create the communication system in the hive and to be sold by the beekeepers.

 

“London bees suffer from overcrowding,” says Dale, “Forage demand is therefore growing because there are more bees and availability of green space is shrinking because it’s being used up by buildings, tarmacked over or decked over.”

 

In theory London should provide an ideal environment to keep bees because the average temperature is almost 2 degrees Celsius higher than the surrounding area meaning that flowering season is longer. In a report released by the Environmental Committee about the green space in the Greater London area it states that 47% of this area is green.

 

Leonie Cooper, the Labour London Assembly for Merton & Wandsworth, is also chair of the Environment Committee and bee friendly forage has been something that she has tried to encourage the mayor to implement in the capital.

 

“To ensure an excellent and knowledgeable response to the Mayor’s draft Environment Strategy I sat down with the London Beekeeper’s Association to talk them through what would be helpful to include.”

 

Despite initiatives to encourage developers to include biodiversity in new builds and homes across Greater London, the 2015 report on the environment goes on to say that every year an area of green space roughly 2 and a half times the size of Hyde Park is being lost. “It’s all very well working on planting schemes in central London to encourage urban gardens,” says Dale, “They’re fun to do, but we’re only really nicking back inches compared to the yards that have been lost.”

 

Increasing bee friendly forage is an important aspect of the work that Bermondsey Street Bees does. They are one of the only bee keeping organisations in London to introduce a green offset. This means that organisations have to provide enough sustainable and perennial planting in the surrounding area for the amount of hives they want to install. Dale admits that, “In reality, nobody will have enough green space for the number of hives they want.”

 

One example of a successful sustainable beehive installation carried out by Bermondsey Street Bees is Berkeley Homes Development at Tower Bridge. They wanted to install four hives on top of the luxury apartments but the green roof space they had was nowhere near enough to feed four hives. Bermondsey Street Bees agreed to help Berkeley Homes if they donated a chunk of money out of their social responsibility budget to a nearby environmental charity. The charity they picked was Potter’s Field Trust, who are responsible for the planting of nearby Potter’s Field Park and have recently taken over St. John’s Churchyard, which is opposite the Berkeley Homes development.

 

Head gardener for Potter’s Field Trust, Ian Mould, explains that plans for St. John’s Churchyard have only been created last November so planting is due to happen in spring 2019. He says that, “There’s going to be flour flower beds that specifically contain bee friendly plants and flowers and in the next phase of the development we plan to remove the existing hedge lines and replace them with edible hedge lines.” This will cater for the urban ecosystems in London, as the forage will attract pollinators and other insects and these, along with the edible berries in the foliage, will attract birdlife.

 

Ian stresses the importance of keeping the planting cycles as natural as possible, “We want to maintain it in a natural way rather than an aesthetic way so it’s not just pruned so it looks good, we need to start thinking about the plants and the wildlife.” Most of the planting advice has come from a book produced by Dale Gibson and his wife Sarah called, ‘Planting for Honey Bees’, which contains advice and planting tips for anyone in urban environments who want to increase bee friendly forage.

 

Camilla Goddard also keeps bees in Central London. She started beekeeping 11 years ago and since then has gone down the educational route of beekeeping, teaching individuals and organisations how to look after bees. Sustainability is a key part of her business, Capital Bee, and she says that, “A lot of the work is encouraging people to keep bees, learn about them or plant for them so that the next generation can carry on the work.”

 

A lot of Camilla’s research has come out of the analysis she has carried out on honey produced all over London. By finding out what plants the bees visit most to collect the nectar and pollen she can provide people with information on they types of species to plant. “A good example of this would be the lime trees in West London” she explains, “the results from the honey samples I take usually show most of the nectar and pollen coming from trees, meaning that planting more trees is crucial to sustainable beekeeping.”

 

Over the last decade urban beekeeping has become a symbol of social and environmental responsibility and lots of organisations and high profile buildings have installed hives on their roofs including; The London Stock Exchange and Fortnum and Mason. This has led to the huge increase in the bee population and a real shortage of pollen and nectar. Ashurst is an international law firm and they are one of the few companies to focus more on encouraging planting of bee friendly forage, rather than installing beehives. They installed two empty hives on their roof to raise awareness of the sustainability issues around urban beekeeping, and have since then, have worked closely with the London Beekeeper’s Association to support beekeeper training and planting projects.

 

Urban landscapes around the globe have also seen a rise in the number of people keeping bees, and they too face similar problems about the lack of available forage and the diminishing amount of green spaces. Bees are crucial to the ecosystems of the world and although introducing more honey bees into urban environments has the potential to protect a vulnerable species, they have to be looked after carefully and provided with enough nectar and pollen to efficiently manage and maintain their hives.

 

 

What to plant to encourage more bees in your garden - Extra box on page (included in word count)

 

Alexa Jones is a gardener from Devon and she goes through all the plants and flowers that bees and other pollinating insects are most attracted too.

 

“With flowers it’s really important to consider the shape of the petals as well as the amount of nectar and pollen they can provide. Bees prefer flowers that are cone-shaped because it means they can fly in and stay protected inside the flower whilst they are collecting food.” Good flowers to plant for bees include; dalias, allium, buddleia, penstemon, gladioli and echinacea.

 

“These are all colourful, open bloom flowers which look pretty in gardens and in urban garden window boxes,” explains Alexa, “But sometimes the less attractive plants, shrubs and trees are the ones that provide the bees and wildlife with the best source of food.”

 

Bees love perennials because they provide nectar and pollen year after year, and anything evergreen because they are a food source all year round. Ivy is one the most pollen producing plants and a lot of research has been done to back this up, but other examples of bee friendly plants are trees include; lime trees, crab apple, cherry plum, quince, sycamore and horse chestnut.