More people are wising up to the value of bees.
It takes 12 bees their entire bee lifetime to gather enough nectar to make one teaspoon of honey. They will visit thousands of flowers a day and fly great distances before returning home to deposit the nectar into the hive's cells.
During their travels, bees play a vital role in the life of plants, dusting pollen from one plant to another and so ensuring fertilisation, and the survival and diversity of hundreds of species, including humans! We need bees, and lots of them.
Fortunately many city-dwellers have cottoned on to this, and the number of beehives in suburban gardens is growing. This is a worldwide trend - you can even spot bees flying to and from their hives on the rooftops of apartment buildings in Paris and New York. These industrious creatures will find a way to hunt and gather in the most urban of situations, and give their city keepers a sweet reward in the form of honey.
Aucklander Greig Buckley became inspired during a visit to his local market. He got talking to a beekeeper and found out there were several backyard hives in his neighbourhood, and that the beekeeper would basically do all the work. The bees fed themselves and the keeper regularly checks the hive.
