Bees cruise in to hotel destination
As summer sets in and flowers burst forth, urban Christchurch beekeepers say pollination in the city is at a good level.
From the rooftop of Hotel Montreal, where four hives hold about 60,000 bees, apiarist Jeff Robinson talks about his winged clients.
‘‘I believe we’ve got adequate pollination now in the city with the current number of hives,’’ he said.
His company, Alpine Forest Honey, had dozens of hives around the city but there were hundreds stacked full of bees all over the city.
‘‘A lot of people are doing their hobby beekeeping and there are others doing rental beekeeping like us.
‘‘We started about nine years ago. We were the only ones in the South Island, and now there are quite a considerable number.’’
Cantabrians could host a hive at their place for $50 a month, and a hive landlord like Robinson would visit every four to six weeks to check the hives for honey and disease.
Robinson said the work was ‘‘quite labour intensive’’.
‘‘Every site that we go to either has one or two hives, and that requires a lot of travel,’’ he said.
‘‘The position of the hives varies considerably from small backyards to pensioner cottages, to balconies up on the hill and down many steps, so that has its challenges.’’
The rooftops of city buildings made an ideal location for hives, he said.
The bees could then keep to themselves and apiarists had good access.
Bees had been set up on the roof of the Ballantynes building on Colombo St, the Ara Institute of Canterbury on Madras St, and the Canterbury Club on Cambridge Tce, among others.
‘‘These [Hotel Montreal] bees would be going within at least 2 kilometres, up to 5 kilometres which encompasses the Botanic Gardens and many floral parks around the city, so I would expect to have a lovely multi-floral honey,’’ Robinson said.
He checked the hives for the first time last Wednesday and hotel general manager Vicki Bretherton was on hand with a fistful of teaspoons to sample the bees’ hard work.
‘‘It’s delicious isn’t it; oh I’m so happy,’ Bretherton said.
More than 100 kilograms of honey could be produced from one hive, but before honey-addicts rush off to rent a hive, most of it gets eaten by the bees themselves.
About 10kg was taken from each hive for humans to savour. Bretherton said they planned to use the honey for speciality dishes in the hotel’s kitchen and gift jars to their VIPS.
Despite their well-known sting, bees presented no threat to those near the hives, Robinson said.
‘‘Bees are essential of course to our food; a third of our diet requires bees for pollination of food crops.
‘‘There are no feral bees that survive for any length of time now, because of the varroa mite, so we are totally dependent on man now for the existence of bees.’’