Capital Growth

Since the site where I have the hive is owned by the council I've been asked to register it as a food-growing site. I filled in the application today to register the site as such, and thought I might as well blog some of the things I wrote about the site and the bees . . .

The site is designated as a nature reserve, owned by the council and managed by a wildlife trust. It is a smallish site which is overhung by several large trees. The site's history is unclear, but there's a story that there used to be an old coach-house there, and that Pink Floyd used to live there. This, surely, is urban myth. The centre of the site is taken up by a huge copper beech and there is a man-made pond with frogs and newts. Until bees were kept there recently, the site was little used and rarely opened by anyone. The site is ideal as a small nature reserve, and its relatively obsurity from without make it a good discrete place to home honey bees. Ideally the site would be a little sunnier for the bees so the hives could be as dry as possible, but this need is balanced with the need to keep the site discrete.

Keeping bees in Maida Vale will primarily be of enormous benefit to the local flora. Honey bees visit flowers to gather nectar and pollen which are taken back to the hive. The nectar is processed and stored in the hive as honey. The pollen, being protein rich, is also stored as a foodstuff primarily for the young larvae. As the bees move from flower to flower to forage they spread pollen from one plant to another and hence pollinate the plants. Honey bees can forage over three miles from their hive. With honey bee numbers diminishing alarmingly across the country, it's important to help conserve the species which is responsible for 80% of all insect pollination worldwide. Food providing plants which are common in London and are pollinated by honey bees include apple, cherry, hazel, pear, plum, blackberry, cucumber, onion, squash, sunflower, blueberry, cranberry, corriander, carrot, strawberry, fennel, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, brussel sprout, turnip, chestnut and quince to name but a few. It is estimated that one third of our diet is directly dependant on the relationship between flowers and their pollination by bees.

Of course the bees also produce honey. This important foodstuff is used as winter stores since although many bees work themselves to death in the summer, many thousand will survive through the winter so the colony can be up and running again early the following year. Beekeepers can carefully remove some of this honey, though this must be balanced with the need of the bees. It is my intention to give the honey to family, friends and colleagues.