Plan Bee’s interactive map matches bee-keepers with landowners

Urban beekeeping is a hobby that’s becoming quite popular with city-dwellers around the world. But the concept can be a bit more challenging than trying to grow a garden on your condo balcony.

What do you do if you want to create a hive, so that you can produce fresh honey for your family? Where do you house all these buzzing creatures?

A website helps solve that problem by matching prospective beekeepers with landowners who are more than happy to accommodate bees on their land.

The “Hive Talking” site features an interactive map. This tool has the ability to connect you to gardeners and allotment keepers in your area.

The initiative is part of the Co-operative’s £1m Plan Bee campaign to address the plight of the honeybee. There are serious concerns that the population in England alone may have halved between 1985 and 2005. The campaign also advocates courses in urban beekeeping and established city-based hives.

The Guardian quotes Chris Shearlock, sustainable development manager at the Co-operative: “More and more city-dwellers are taking up beekeeping but not everyone has the space to keep bees. On the other hand, many have the land. By bringing these parties together, Hive Talking could help reverse honeybee decline in the UK.”

Meanwhile, Brian McCallum, co-founder and director of Urban Bees, who came up with the idea for the interactive map, said: “Some of the beekeepers I have trained have struggled to find land on which to keep their bees, but as honeybees are pollinators of many wildflowers, fruit and vegetables, allotment holders and gardeners appreciate the benefit of accommodating a hive on their land.”

But not all hives require vast farmland to thrive. Urban rooftops have become one of the places where bee enthusiasts can keep their hives.

For more information, check out Plan Bee