My partner and I are hobbyist beekeepers who decided to set up this project as we saw a need to get involved in the worldwide effort to help save the honey bees.

In many other cities around the world, the practice of rooftop beekeeping has been done for decades. With the collapse of honeybees in 2007 (Colony Collapse Disorder), a serious risk is taking place on our natural food supply since the honey bee is crucial in our environment. Since their existence helps with sustainability in food along with the responsibility of pollinating a large proportion of the food that we eat and if the honeybees are in trouble, we are in trouble as well.

Paris, London, Toronto, San Francisco and New York City are only a few of the cities where urban beekeeping is thriving. Why not here in Melbourne we say. As a benefit we also get some true local produce, with less actual food miles as well as help green our city at the same time. A vision of looking forward towards a greener, sustainable future.

Since we started in November last year, we have been overwhelmed with all the support we have been receiving from local businesses and the community.

The way in which the project works is that, we install, maintain and look after the bees at no cost using natural beekeeping methods. What is on offer is an opportunity for people to learn beekeeping and get involved as well as, depending on the honey flow for the season we are looking at sharing a portion of the honey for the gesture.

We extract the honey, which we will do at one of restaurants who have donated their kitchen to help out. The balance of the honey will be blended with care by us to produce our own unique Melbourne City honey which is to be sold back to the city community.

Currently we have 12 sites with another 25 on a waiting list.