Secret Gardeners: Bee Urban

Storm Flowers Garden meets Barnaby Shaw, founder of Bee Urban, a community enterprise based in Kennington Park.

Wander through the edges of Kennington Park on a summer’s day and you might notice the hum of bees or catch the scent of lavender drifting from behind gates emblazoned with a bright blue honey comb. This is Bee Urban, a thriving social enterprise led by Barnaby Shaw, who has turned this corner of the park into a buzzing hive for beekeeping, gardening and community.

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We visit Bee Urban in the height of a London summer. It’s hot and kids are running about, making art in the garden. Bees float through the air, enjoying the ripe produce from the orchard; apples, plums and other soft fruit that laces the breeze with a heady scent. Tall echium lines the garden’s paths, whose beds are kept overgrown and wild as space for ground nesting bees and other pollinators.

From grassroots to social enterprise

Barnaby didn’t set out to start a business. Back in 2008, when he was an enthusiastic volunteer beekeeper at an urban farm, a member of the Friends of Kennington Park approached him with an idea: would he be interested in housing hives in the disused garden space of Keeper’s Lodge in the park? Barnaby and a few like-minded volunteers got to work to create what became Bee Urban’s first site. “Bee Urban wasn’t a concept at that point,” he reflects. “We just wanted to make the most of the space.”

Another opportunity came up a few years later; an empty garage space in Camberwell’s John Ruskin Street that had potential to be transformed into a growing site. After cleaning it up and building raised beds, it became clear that the team needed to develop organisational structure to attract funding to continue to do these kinds of projects in their local community. With support and training from the School for Social Entrepreneurs, Bee Urban was officially founded, and the project continued to grow before moving to their current home, The Hive, in 2015.

During our visit, volunteers at the Hive are diligently harvesting honey collected from apiaries at Brompton Cemetery, where a warm spring earlier in the year has led to three harvests in a single season. The harvest involves removing wax from the honeycomb, a process that they make look as satisfyingly smooth as spreading butter on a piece of toast, before placing the frames into a spinner, a machine that extracts honey using centrifugal force. Honey is then ready to be bottled up and sold – or shared; as we watch the harvest, a child rushes in from the garden with the frenetic energy of a bee and offers Barnaby a grape in exchange for a taste of sweet honey.

How a beekeeping hobby became a community movement

Barnaby’s connection to beekeeping goes back to childhood. “My dad used to keep bees when I was young,” he recalls, “I was trying to get him back into it and in doing so found my own curiosity.” What began as a hobby quickly turned into a vocation, and he gained experience through volunteer beekeeping work before building Bee Urban into what it is today.

In the early days, resources were scarce. Most materials were sourced through donation or reuse schemes from events such as the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, one of the biggest horticultural events in the UK. Fundraising was a constant challenge, and it still is. “As a social enterprise, we balance outreach with commercial work,” he explains. Today, Bee Urban manages around 30 sites across London, from working alongside university beekeeping clubs to managing hives at high-profile locations like the Bank of England and National Theatre.

Commercial beekeeping is essential to bring in revenue to enable Bee Urban to operate and continue to offer projects in their local community. “There are a lot of people interested in nature, and it’s one of the biggest reasons we try and get the community together and involved in our work,” Barnaby explains. They work closely with a local SEND school, hosting carpentry sessions at The Hive and carving workshops on-site for the children, and regularly open their Kennington Park space to community art groups for evening classes for mental health. When Bee Urban relocated in 2015, it was the support of local neighbours which helped secure their present space, which Barnaby says they could not have gained without community backing.

Beekeeping through the seasons

What does a beekeeping year look like? Traditionally speaking, the beekeeping year tends to finish on the harvesting. Once the harvest is finished, Barnaby’s team will get the bees ready for autumn and winter (parasites are endemic in the UK at this time of year, so bee population levels are watched closely.)

In the cooler months, bees are monitored monthly, and food stores are topped up when needed. Unlike other bees, honeybees don’t hibernate. During mild winters, this means they can still be active and might deplete food stores more quickly, so beekeepers will supplement the food.

The bee population contracts over the winter and expands again during spring, which is the season for building populations, and the equipment needed for it. “If it’s really warm, we’ll be monitoring weekly or fortnightly, checking for swarming cycles and general bee health. And monitoring will continue over the summer until we’re back at harvest.”

Planting for pollinators

To support bees at home, Barnaby’s advice is refreshingly simple:

1. Choose open flowers. This allows bees to easily access florets for pollen and nectar.
2. Don’t be afraid of weeds. Dandelions are valuable food sources for bees.
3. Time your pruning. Ivy, for example, flowers in autumn and provides vital forage. Consider waiting to prune until later in the year.
4. Extend the flowering season with early and late flowering plants to give bees food sources during the off-season.

If you’re not a confident gardener, Barnaby recommends checking plant labels in nurseries, which identify bee-friendly plants and their flowering months. As there is always an abundance of flowering plants during the summer, consider plants that flower between September and March, like winter flowering bulbs and climbing plants.

Honey and hands-on learning

Bee Urban’s honey is sold at The Hive in Kennington Park, and in a handful of local delis, including Italo in Vauxhall’s Bonnington Square. After the bees have had their fill, lavender from the garden is distilled into oil during the off-season, and sold alongside the honey in their shop.

Community involvement is encouraged throughout the year. Weekly drop-in sessions welcome local volunteers, while corporate volunteering days help tackle bigger projects. Activities depend on the season and what tasks need to be done, from gardening to painting raised beds in the surrounding neighbourhood. Seasonal activities include Beekeeping experiences with Hiver Beers during summer, and candle-making sessions during autumn using wax from the honey harvest.

If you would like to get involved, email the team to enroll or visit their website for more information.

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With thanks to Barnaby Shaw at Bee Urban for showing us around the garden

If you would like to tell your gardening story, we would love to hear from you. Get in touch at florist@stormflowerslondon.com