01
Pharmacy Roof
Linden-heavy. Our gentlest colonies.
Urban Beekeeping Collective · est. 2019
The city keeps bees now.
COMB tends forty-one hives on twelve rooftops — above a pharmacy, a tram depot, a public library. The bees work a six-kilometre radius. We stay out of their way.
- Hives
- 41
- Rooftops
- 12
- Bees at midsummer
- 2,400,000
- Kilograms drawn last year
- 1,184
Why rooftops
A roof is a meadow
nobody planted.
Lime, balcony thyme,
railway bramble —
the bees found it first.
Cities out-bloom farmland now: more flower species per square kilometre, no spray regime, and warmth off the brick that stretches the season three weeks past the orchards. The honey proves it — read the jar, taste the street.
The rooftops
Twelve roofs.
Seven worth bragging about.
Every site is leased for honey, tended weekly, and named by whoever climbs the ladder first. Colony counts as of this spring.
02
Depot 9
Tram-yard bramble. Dark, mineral honey.
03
The Old Exchange
Swarm-caught queens. Stubborn, quick.
04
Library Roof
Reads as lime blossom every June.
05
Cannery Lane
Rooftop gardens on three sides.
06
Waterworks
Ivy in autumn — the last flow of the year.
07
Grain Store
Highest roof. Lavender windbreak.
Follow a bee — they commute between roofs all day.
The draw
Three honeys a year.
The bees set the schedule.
Spring
First Draw
Hawthorn and early lime. Pale as new wax, gone by June.
340 gSold out
Midsummer
High Wire
Linden and clover off the depot roofs. Bright, resinous, faintly of tram sparks — we swear.
340 g$18
Autumn
Last Ivy
Ivy and rosebay. Near-black, sets hard by solstice. The keepers' favourite.
250 g$16
Jars go to members first. What's left sells from the Pharmacy Roof stairwell on harvest Saturdays and is gone by noon.
Join the collective
Adopt a hive,
or learn to run one.
Membership
Hive Share
from $14 a month
Your name lettered on a hive, three jars a year, and first call on harvest days. You'll know your queen by name.
Take a share→
Training
Keeper's Course
eight Saturdays
Smoker to spinner in one season, taught on a working roof. Leave with your own nucleus colony and somewhere to put it.
Book a seat→
Landlords
Rooftop Lease
paid in honey
Own a flat roof that takes sun before nine? Rent it to bees. We haul, tend and insure; you take honey in rent.
Offer a roof→