Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame;
Each to his passion; what 's in a name?
Albert Einstein famously said 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.”. Sadly, the situation has been getting worse and worse since Einstein’s days - bees are responsible for pollinating about 80% of all the crops and the reduction in their numbers would mean world hunger.
According to Greenpeace, the main reasons for global bees-decline are ‘’industrial agriculture, parasites/pathogens and climate change. The loss of biodiversity, destruction of habitat and lack of forage due to mono-cultures and bee-killing pesticides are particular threats for honeybees and wild pollinators’’.
There is much awareness-raising about the bees at the moment, and while the internet can be a fantastic tool, it can also be often misleading – for example the recent post claiming to be from Sir David Attenborough claimed that a spoonful of sugary water can be beneficial for the bees. Apparently, it was fake news and could seriously affect pollination.
We at Hive deeply care about the environment and believe that you can make a difference even with the smallest steps. You can probably guess from our company name that we do love our bees and honey; and among our many environmentally friendly initiatives one of the most popular ones is the ‘Adopt a Beehive’ scheme. We adopt a beehive from the British Beekeepers’ Association for every contract we win, and the money raised goes into the research to develop of more resistant types of bees. Some of the money we pay when we adopt a beehive is used for research into how to stop Asiatic Wasp, an invasive species – which has now reached the UK from Europe. These wasps must be stopped as they mainly feed on bees.
We’ve adopted a multitude of hives all over London and South East. We adopt a beehive on behalf of every new customer, and send out 6 Monthly news updates about how the bees are doing – along with a hive goodie box, that everyone loves.
One of our latest initiatives is to buy our own beehives with our Hive logo. We will produce honey from our beehives and those jars of local delicious London honey will be available to our customers and employees.
Our customers love the idea of adopting beehive and producing honey and had so many enquiries about it that now we are introducing another service – beehives on their roofs.
We can now provide a fully managed beehive service on the roof of buildings and they get 50% of all the honey that is produced. It’s about £2000 per hive in the first year (it goes down in the second year) and it’s recommended to have 3 hives to have a good chance of colony survival.
Apparently urban roof hives are doing really well as there is lots of tree pollen in London for the bees. There are lots of rooftop gardens and green areas in the city which are very popular and can attract bees.
Please get in touch with us if you want to learn more about what we do, how to adopt or acquire a beehive. We’ll be buzzing to hear from you…
