Urban Beekeeping

Beekeepers are increasingly placing hives within urban areas. While honey bees make good city dwellers, beekeepers planning on keeping urban bees should consider several important issues. The first consideration is the safety of people and animals in the vicinity. While honey bees are usually gentle insects, they will defend their hive by stinging. Young children, elderly people, and confined pets are particularly vulnerable in the case of a stinging event. Bee hives should not be placed near a property line or an area where people walk or frequent. The next important consideration for locating bee hives is ease of access. Bee hive equipment and honey are heavy; try to minimize carrying distances. A group of dedicated individuals wanted to place bee hives on the roof of the urban church in today’s picture. I suggested that they consider the difficulty in carrying live bees, equipment, and bee feed through the church as well as returning with dripping supers of harvested honey. They chose to build a fenced enclosure next to the building to safely house the bee hives. A fence or hedge bee hive’s entrance forces the bees to fly up above the heads of people. While bee hives are placed on rooftops in many cities, these locations are often extremely hot and lacking in shade. Honey bees consume lots of water and need to have water available at all times.

Some in the public are fearful of stinging insects; urban beekeepers usually conceal their hives from view. Some municipalities place constraints on urban hive numbers. However, most communities realize the benefit of having trained beekeepers and managed bee hives. They serve as advocates for the role of pollinators and beneficial insects. Understanding the interconnectedness of pollinators and our food crops, informed citizens reduce their use of chemicals in the environment. Knowledgeable beekeepers are capable of handling Africanized honey bees, and maintaining a healthy population of managed honey bees prevents creating environmental niches for undesirable insects, like hornets and yellow jackets.

--Richard