The London Honey Company in Korea

In mid-September The London Honey Company (LHC) were invited to a very special beekeeping event which happens every 3 years, this was the 44th Apimondia International Apicultural Congress in Daejeon, South Korea. The theme was “Bee, Connecting the World!”. We felt like this was an opportunity not to be missed. Steve sent his right hand man, London Honey Company beekeeper Nic Bishop who was keen to learn about Korean beekeeping and how people have been inspired by Steve’s work across the globe! The LHC was invited to the congress by Nicola Bradbear of Apimondia and Professor Seungwang Lee of Seoul National University.  Nicola is one of the upmost personalities in the world of beekeeping and rural development, she introduced a section on Urban Beekeeping to Apimondia for the very first time this year and deserves a big thank you for inviting us to such an incredible event. Nic’s presentation included a brief history of the company and how it developed, offering amazing pictures of bees around the London rooftops, as well as technical insights on how to be an urban beekeeper! Back in 2013 Steve's Book ‘The Urban Beekeeper, A year of Bees in the City’ was translated into Korean. Professor Seungwang, who invited the LHC to visit the bees at the university, and other beekeepers Nic met, such as Jin Park, had all read the Korean copy of the book several times. Jin was actually inspired by Steve's book in setting up this operation with the rest of the Urbees Seoul team.    There were many interesting organisations at the conference, such COLOSS ,Prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes, to more extravagant projects like Denis Anderson's work on reintroducing sustainable beekeeping in the UAE. The Rural Development Series offered presentations ranging from the role of women beekeepers in Zambian villages to the introduction of new technologies for the transportation of hives in Ghana.   In Seoul, South Korea’s capital, Nic had the opportunity to meet up with Jin Park of Urbees Seoul and his gentle bees on the UNESCO House in the heart of the city. His bees forage on acacia and chestnut trees from the hills around the N Seoul Tower and access early pollen from the numerous willow trees in the various ecological parks. They exchanged jars of honey and had a two hour bee chat at the UNESCO house bar after which Jin left to check on hives at one of the western embassy's in the city. On his second day in Seoul Nic visited the Seoul National University where Professor Seungwang Lee showed him around his department including the University's huge insectary which was about the size of our warehouse in Bermondsey! He then visited the rooftop bees of Seoul National University which has vast foraging sources offered by the wild mountains and hills that spread out from the south border of the city. The professor was very interested in the foraging sources that London offers our city bees. He told Nic he was in the process of making a recommendation to the Korean Government regarding which trees should be planted around the city and on roads.  In the bee farmer business there is no time for rest and it was a good job that Nic never quite adjusted to the local time zone. Within a few hours of his arrival back in the UK he was off to the Long Mynd heather moors for the Ling harvest and the migration of bees back to the warmer temperatures of the south! We hope to be given the opportunity to attend the next Apimondia conference again in 2018 when it will be held in Turkey and to help to develop urban beekeeping further into the future.