#rooftopbees

Bee Conscious and Hipster Honey on the Horizon.

Yesterday was a magical day, mother nature at her best, her blossom, the birds and a busy urban bee, discovered in a back water in South Kensington.

Spring has sprung with her magnificent cloudless blue sky and radiating sunshine. The air filled with an intoxicating fragrance of blossom and a bee gathered nectar, humming noisy quiet.

I watched the insect with it’s pair of fragile wings neatly tucked behind its body, in direct line with it's angle poise limbs in, a yoga like position, harmonious and balanced. It nuzzled it's way into the stamens of the delicate pink petals, using it's tiny probe, like a portable drinking straw whilst balancing on it’s stalky legs in a feat of natural engineering and equilibrium.

Blessed to be the quiet observer, and present to the positively divine meditative energies that Mother Nature brings, eventually succumbing to the will of the camera and capturing one frame of the little honey monster at work. 

Slightly surprisingly, there is growing recognition that bees living in cities tend to produce more and better honey than those kept in the countryside. 'Bees can fly up to five miles for food, but they tend not to stray more than a mile from the hive’.

It transpires, Paris is the rooftop beekeeping capital having been for the past 10 years officially a pesticide-free zone, and that also may partly explain it’s advantage, the warmth of the city environment also promotes early breeding. 

Following in the footsteps of savvy Paris restaurants and thanks to passionate apiculteurs (bee keepers) like Audric de Campeaua there are 400 official and up to 700 unofficial roof top apiaries (bee yards!)  London is also turning it’s attention upwards and rooftops into honey. 

It transpires, Fortum and Mason on Piccadilly, have been keeping bees on the roof top with 4 apiaries installed since 2008. There is of course a waiting list for the the exclusive London honey, produced every September!     

It’s no surprise New York  city's buzzworthy bee subculture is getting in on the act and taking advantage of it’s iconic skyline to protect bees livelihood.  Thankfully, in an environmentally friendly drive, USA has for the first time has recognised the importance of protecting bees, recently adding seven species of yellow-faced bees, all native to Hawaii, to be protected under the Endangered Species Act.