Benedict Hughes' sweet deliverance. Alex brings home the coconut.

16th February 2015

A few months ago I wrote about urban beekeeping pioneer, Lyndon Fenlon, and the urban honey legacy he left Melbourne when he left Melbourne. Well Benedict Hughes akaThe Practical Beekeeper, that’s him above collecting honey on the rooftop of The Commons Apartments in Brunswick, is one of the keepers of that legacy. Benedict makes a living as an urban beekeeper collecting errant swarms and managing his collection of Northern suburbs hives as well as a couple more out of town on Hollyburton andTaranaki farms.

On top of his work as a beekeeper, Benedict is also a bee educator. One Sunday a month he runs the CERES Bee Group, teaching aspiring apiarists the secrets of working with bees in the city. One of Benedict’s key messages to his students is advocating for a “bee-safe” environment. And although it sounds kind of cute and even a little quaint, with bee colony collapses occurring around the world, having no bees to pollinate flowering plants is one of those catastrophes that has consequences almost too huge to get your head around (give it a try it’s positively mind boggling).

The end of the world aside, this summer Benedict has been busy collecting and extracting honey from his urban hives. And apart from his CERES Honey he’s named each type after the suburb it was harvested in. As you’d expect there are only limited supplies so if you are keen to try a jar we currently have in the webshop – Practical Beekeeper honeys from CERES, Alphington, Ivanhoe, Preston and Thornbury. Read more …