City/Rooftop Beekeeping

Thinking about putting a hive on your roof? Interested in helping bees by keeping bees? Read this to learn more and join our pollinator-friendly scheme!

While we all want to save the bees, it isn’t as easy as installing a hive of domestic honeybees and hoping all will be well. Getting bees isn’t as difficult as keeping them well. Honeybees are social and can spread disease and bad genetics to other bees for miles around. In the meantime, they take scarce forage from wild pollinators like solitary bees, butterflies, and moths.

Fortunately, like honeybees that work together for the benefit of all, you can join others to make a difference. The MDBKA Urban Forage Initiative allows you to sponsor a month for local pollinators. Your rooftop plot will give bees a dense, efficient source of pollen and nectar. 

Ancoats with bumblebee
Learn About The Hive
These are not fussy, delicate planters. They are a solid bank of seasonal forage that will draw hungry pollinators. Your site will be on their go-to list for the duration of flowering. June is great for clover. In July, dandelions are the dish of choice. In every month, even in winter, there is a flower that will draw bees.

Why not keep bees?

Proper training and site preparation for beekeeping takes a year, at minimum. Training the beekeeper is necessary and time-consuming. A hive and basic equipment start at £1000, with maintenance costs continuing every year. Domestic honeybees can swarm to the street, spread varroa mites, and carry viruses to other bees. The logistics of rooftop beekeeping include weekly inspections, heavy boxes full of stinging insects, and, if you’re lucky, sticky, dripping honey that needs extraction in a clean food-preparation area.

Post Box swarm
Cafe table swarm
Meanwhile, domestic honeybees outcompete wild pollinators for available forage, edging out the delicate natives that cling to survival at the edges of our urban world. A single bumblebee queen must establish her nest and reproduce in the short space between when she emerges in spring and mid-July. After that, the entire generation dies off, leaving only a few new queens to live through winter. If kept honeybees collect all the pollen and nectar during those crucial months, there are no second chances for wild pollinators.

Help in a Hurry

You don’t have to wait to start helping bees. Instead of installing a hungry hive of honeybees, consider setting up a forage bank, instead. You will join a Manchester network, receive a plaque for your garden, a space of honour on our website, and be recognised for your contribution at our annual celebration of pollinator angels.

Evening with blue

Logistics

Setting up a single-species rooftop garden is much easier than trying to make a pretty-to-humans, diverse flower box. All you have to do is get one species, likely a ‘weed’, to grow for one month of the year.

Although it isn’t as simple as throwing potting soil in a planter and sprinkling seeds on top, set up is much easier than keeping honeybees. Maintenance requires only a few hours a month of docile plants rather than weekly inspections of tetchy stinging insects. Anyone who can tell the difference between a robin and a pigeon can pull out the right plants to keep a plot in top condition.

The Association will visit your site before and after you start. We offer advice and links to landscape professionals, as well as a yearly inspection to ensure your plot is working as expected. Your badge will renew every year with no need to worry about your bees swarming onto customers and clients!

Photo Credits

  • Whitewindow box – Gareth Worthington
  • Ancoats with bumblebee – Deborah Todd
  • Bumblebee on blue close – Gareth Worthington
  • Post Box swarm – Gareth Trehearn
  • Café Table swarm – Gareth Trehearn
  • Evening with blue – Gareth Worthington

Contact MDBKA today to enquire about joining the Urban Forage Initiative.