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Urban beekeeping in Birmingham

Urban beekeeping in the heart of Birmingham

Tessa Burwood

A visit to Highbury Park Teaching Apiary revealed that urban bees thrive much better than those in the country.

Why are bees dying out?

One theory is Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, a phenomenon that concerns beekeepers across the world, and is probably caused by intensive farming. Adult worker bees spontaneously abandon their hives, leaving eggs unhatched, so the colony dies.

You may think that Birmingham is not a great place to set up a beehive, but with its lime tree avenues, large parks and keen gardeners, the city provides a haven for honey bees. In the face of mounting evidence from across the world that bees are in dangerous decline, it seems there is no better time to start your own apiary.

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A recent book entitled 'A World Without Bees' argues that "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Hives in Highbury Park Teaching Apiary

This may sound ridiculous, but when you consider that bees pollinate around 70% of the food we eat, it's not so difficult to believe that their extinction could dramatically affect the human race.

Keep bees!

Many theories abound as to why bees are declining in number, but the message from beekeepers is clear- keep bees! It's good for the planet, your health and you can even make a little money from it, and it's not as hard as you may think.

To find out more about the gentle craft of urban beekeeping, I met some enthusiastic beekeepers at Highbury Park Teaching Apiary in Kings Heath.

Highbury Hall was Joseph Chamberlain鈥檚 residence during his time as Member of Parliament for Birmingham. The apiary sits in a sunny clearing in its grounds, hidden from public view by a veil of trees. This is said to be the spot where Chamberlain鈥檚 beehives were kept a century ago, and the tradition continues today.

Planet Bee

Twenty or so hives of different shapes and sizes line the clearing, and on this sunny afternoon the air around them is thick with buzzing honey bees. These creatures are much more placid than their fierce reputation suggests, and they will usually only sting if provoked or threatened, or if their hive is at risk from invading predators like woodpeckers.

However, bees are highly territorial, living and working in their own hive, which can be around 50,000 strong. It's important to wear protective clothing when approaching a hive, and it's not the easiest thing to put on!

The baggy white suit, black veil, rubber boots and gloves make you feel like an explorer on Planet Bee, but when they start landing all over you and buzzing around your head, you're glad of the barrier between you and their stings.

Worked to death

If a single worker bee is blown by an unexpected gust of wind into a neighbouring hive, guard bees at the entrance will instantly recognise her as an invading foreigner. If she is carrying pollen, she will be allowed to enter and deposit it, but if she dares to cross the threshold without an offering for the hive, she is angrily shooed away.听

Excluder to keep the queen out of the honey

Mesh keeps the queen out of the honey

Female worker bees literally work themselves to death. They provide food for grubs, drones and the queen bee and build the wax honeycomb that forms the hive's integral structure. They clean, ventilate, defend and repair the hive, and most ingeniously of all, they keep it at a constant temperature of around 34掳C.

Worker bees are experts in air conditioning. If the colony is too hot, they douse their bodies in water and bring it into the hive, then work together to fan the air with their wings, thus bringing the temperature down by evaporation.

It's a bee's life

In cooler times, they huddle together around the brood of eggs to keep it warm. Once a worker bee reaches the end of her useful life, she drops dead, to make way for new, younger workers to emerge.

The queen bee is marked with white paint

The only males in the colony are drones, which spend their short lives being fed by worker bees, only to emerge from the hive to mate with the queen. Once they have done this, they also drop dead, as their useful purpose has been served. Meanwhile the queen in a manmade hive lives on the bottom floor, where she lays an exhausting 2,000 eggs a day at her peak. Life as a bee is not easy.

Bees' intriguing and highly complex behaviour does not end there. From the eerie screams emitted by emerging queen bees, to "follower" colonies that pursue hapless beekeepers far from their hives, the mysteries beekeepers over the ages have encountered are endless, and some confound scientific research to this day.

City asylum

The world of the beehive is highly sensitive to small changes in the environment, relying heavily on its natural surroundings. It all sounds very complicated, so why bother becoming an urban beekeeper? One enthusiast I met explains his story.听听

A queen bee larva

If John Gale did not live in the city, he probably would not be an apiarist. He and his wife Roxy have been keeping bees in their back garden in Selly Park for six years. It was only after an appeal from a work colleague living in the countryside to give his bees asylum in the city that the first hive was set up in John's garden.

Soon after, the couple decided to invest in their own hives. Now they have six on their back patio, which in a good year's harvest can produce up to 700lbs of honey.

"We get better quantities of honey in an urban environment because we're surrounded by gardens- people intent on growing things, producing pollen and nectar. In the countryside they only have one crop, like oil seed rape, for example. The bees go mad on that, but then when it's finished, where鈥檚 the next crop coming from? Here, we can continue virtually all year round."

Checking an older, blackened hive

In harmony with nature

The Gales don't eat much honey themselves, but they are fascinated by bees, and the way they interact with the world around them. When they give talks to local children about bees, John and Roxy are often shocked by their detachment from the sources of their food: "Some of the kids we meet think honey comes from the supermarket. They have no idea about bees, just like they think milk and eggs are made in a factory."

Roxy believes the key to successful beekeeping is to work in harmony with nature: "Every action we take affects the world, it is common sense really. A lot of people don't think when they take actions, and bees help you become more aware of what we do to our planet."

The couple sell their honey at local garden centres and markets, and enjoy entering the various competitions organised by local beekeeping groups. John has won several prizes for his honey, which has a rich and complex flavour due to the wide variety of pollens available near his hives.

Ancient sweetness

Honey was recently voted the nation's favourite toast topping, but it has a long established place in human society, far beyond the bounds of the breakfast table. It has been sought as an antiseptic and sweetener for at least 100,000 years. In Ancient Egypt and the Middle East, it was used to embalm the dead.

Beekeepers share knowledge and check the hives

Beekeepers check the hives

John and Roxy Gale also sell beeswax, which is prized for a variety of purposes, from hair care for those with dreadlocks, to furniture polish and lubricant for didgeridoos. They are often called out to remove wild beehives from people's back gardens, although John says, nine times out of ten, he arrives at the scene to find a wasp or bumble bee nest.

John meets with other members of Highbury Park Teaching Apiary to swap tips and equipment, help maintain the hives and talk shop with other beekeepers.

Highbury Park is the perfect place to discover more about the fascinating world of beekeeping. Local enthusiasts who use the site claim that, despite the stings, keeping bees is much easier and much more rewarding than one might assume.

Wax comb built on a manmade foundation

Reuse and recycle

The tools and materials of a beekeeper's trade are simple and low impact. Hives are constructed from wood, as are the layers of frames that fill them. These frames hold paper thin wax foundations, embossed with the characteristic honeycomb pattern.

This encourages the bees to build up their comb in neat, easily accessible compartments, rather than in the ball shaped mass they produce in the wild. Once they are worn out, these foundations can be returned to the manufacturer and melted down for reuse. Some beekeepers even have solar powered wax extractors, which use the Sun's heat to melt down old honeycombs.

People from many walks of life come to Highbury Park to interact with the bees. One man, George, a former chemistry teacher, had been keeping bees for three years before he discovered he was highly allergic to the sting, and had to stop. Even now, he visits the hives at a respectful distance, unwilling to stay away, despite the risks to his health.

Clever little creatures

One lady visiting Highbury Park Apiary stood amongst the bees with no protective suit on, in the belief that bee stings would cure her alopecia.听

Watching a hive develop is part of what draws the enthusiasts at Highbury Park Teaching Apiary to beekeeping. Anthony, a trainee engineer, set up his hive just over a year ago, and he is now eagerly awaiting his first crop of honey.

New beekeeper Anthony

"I find it fascinating the way they are organised and how they all work together. They're very intelligent for such little creatures. If you come up to the front of the hive, you'll see the little guard bees come out and have a look at you, then they'll try to attack you. More young people need to get involved in beekeeping because it's interesting, and it's good for the environment.鈥�

Small scale beekeeping is exactly that- bee "keeping". Enthusiasts are keen to point out that the bees are not farmed. Manmade beehives encourage bees to produce more honey than they need, but there's no way of forcing them to stay, as Roxy Gale explains:

Gardeners Weekend

"We give them a nicely furnished home, with low rent! Wild colonies hardly exist now, we provide a haven for them. We make is easier to extract the honey, but they are free to go where they like."

Bees act as an environmental barometer. They are affected by the slightest change in the seasons, and this year Highbury Park's hives are a month behind in honey production, because of our wet, cold summer. The apiary's members still plan to sell their harvest at Gardeners Weekend in Kings Heath Park.

So what should you do if you want to start up your own beehive? You don't need a lot of space- some people keep bees in courtyards, on balconies or flat roofs. The most important thing is that there are plenty of flowering plants in the vicinity, be they trees, grasses, weeds or garden shrubs. If you don't have enough space at home, you can even hire out a hive at an apiary like the one in Highbury Park, and start from there.

Worker bees on the edge of a frame

Years of experience

According to John Madgwick, of Black Country Beekeeping, starting up your own hive is not very expensive: "To get everything together costs a couple of hundred quid, which as far as hobbies go is quite cheap. It's best to come along to an association like ours, to pick up second hand equipment and tips."

The combined knowledge of Highbury Park's experienced apiarists is worth far more than that contained in books, and it's definitely a good place to start.听

last updated: 29/07/2008 at 17:23
created: 29/07/2008

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Urban beekeeping in the heart of Birmingham