For urban beekeeping means the practice of raising bee families in urbanized areas.
Long ago it was forbidden to farm bees in the city, now in many parts of the world urban beekeeping is considered a practice to be protected and incentivize. To give an example, between 1999 and 2012 London saw beekeepers grow by 220%. In New York Urban beekeeping is allowed on condition that the bees bred are the Italian breed APIs Mellifera Ligustica.
Urban beekeeping and environmental monitoring
The bees fly several kilometers from their hive and visit dozens of different flowers throughout the territory. Their capacity to collect pollen and nectar and to carry it in the hive allows to have a capillary account of the essences present on a territory and any pollutants going to analyze the honey.
Is Urban honey good?
The honey extracted from Arnie urban beekeeping is good, contains many different types of pollen as evidenced by the study that already in 1984 was conducted in Turin. At chemical level there are no quantities of pollutants in excess of the norm and it is therefore possible to consume it normally.
Better urban or country?
The inherent dangers of the city are known to all in relation to heavy metals and fine powders. What is not always known is that even rural environments could hide pitfalls related to monoculture, food industry products and the fact that bees also visit the surrounding industries located usually far from the cities.
Certainly the quality of the Mellifero product increases with the distance of the hives from the industrial zones, from the areas of intensive production or from monoculture. The city then could represent an intermediate factor between the unspoiled high mountain and the industrialized countryside.