New Zealand: Urban beekeepers and rooftop farms transforming Auckland’s skyline
Kai in the Sky is a start-up growing produce on Auckland rooftops for hotels and cafes.
By Thomas Bywater
New Zealand Herald
Sept 14, 2020
Excerpt:
Jessie Baker of Bees Up Top, an Auckland-based company specialising in urban beekeeping.
She has had to visit the hives throughout the city, including 15 or so hives on the rooftops of hotels.
While many of us based in the city have had to work from home, it’s not a luxury beekeepers have had. Apiculture is an essential service, she says “so it’s all go as per usual.”
While hives stay dormant through winter it is about to be the busiest time of the year for beekeepers.
“At the moment in Winter, bees are eating their honey stores,” she says however, “as soon as spring hits, generally the 1st of October, the honey flow comes on again.”
As well as honey production there’s another, less welcome occurrence with spring: swarming season.
It’s a natural part of the life cycle in which bees leave to set up new hives, but can get out of hand if not monitored.
While Bees up Top monitors and moves along bees which are preparing to flee the hive, Jessie says she’s kept busy by call outs to wild hives in Auckland backyards.
