The spring before my second year of beekeeping, I took a class with a local beekeeper. At the end of the class, he asked if anyone would like to tag along while he installed bees in Chicago, at the aquarium and on rooftops of two high rise buildings. I jumped at the chance! Hands on, with a mentor, in cool places? I was in.
I had no idea that decision would lead me to a summer working for a beekeeper managing those city hives. After just one disappointing bee season on my own the year prior, the next season I found myself completely immersed in bees, beekeeping, and in the unique position of traversing through seldom-seen back hallways and dock elevators of fancy buildings downtown. That’s me on the right in the photo.
Logistically, putting bee hives on the roof of a 20+ story building sounds insane, but it works. The number of buildings that have hives on the rooftops is shocking. And while the bees are essentially surrounded by the concrete and steel of the city, they do find opportunities to collect precious resources. Trees (especially Linden), plants and weeds along the Chicago river, and even flowers planted on other rooftops give these colonies enough to sustain themselves. They sometimes even have enough honey to harvest. Bees will fly up to 3-5 miles to forage in search of pollen and nectar. These bees are in a unique position where they have to factor their height in as they fly down, down, down the buildings they’re on to get access to the good stuff.
The buildings I worked on were 23 and 29 stories tall. I parked at the loading docks and took freight elevators up through the guts of the buildings. Let me tell you, when I thought about becoming a beekeeper, I did not anticipate walking through skyscraper boiler rooms to get to rooftop access for bees, but that’s what I did. We even extracted honey in the boiler room hallway.
I traveled downtown weekly to check on the hives. It’s a different kind of beekeeping: oddly quieter and much windier. I often wondered if people from the surrounding office buildings watched me inspect the hives, and what they were thinking. (Probably that I was nuts. They may not be wrong.) Maybe someone out there has photos of me beekeeping on rooftops. If you do, and these buildings look familiar, send them my way!
Managing those hives taught me a lot. Not only did I increase my comfort level with bees, but I adapted to beekeeping in different and sometimes difficult conditions, as well as had the opportunity to compare the differences in urban vs. suburban beekeeping. It was also where I had the chance to take some of my favorite beekeeping photos.
At the aquarium, on the other hand, I worked closely with the staff horticulturist to gain access to manage the hives in a few locations surrounding the aquarium. The aquarium has 90,000 square feet of gardens containing a variety of plants, flowers, vegetable gardens, shrubs, trees and ponds, and is home to additional wildlife, like insects, birds, and aquatic life. This includes red-winged blackbirds, notorious for being territorial during mating season. This resulted in at least one run-in where I was dive-bombed and scratched on the head by one especially ferocious female, but that’s a story for another day.
One of my favorite parts about managing the aquarium hives was the interaction with the public. If I was spotted while inspecting hives, I would field questions from children and adults alike. Most were positive and easily answered. The best feeling, though, came from people whose fears I could calm while I worked, proving bees weren’t going to attack and sting unprovoked. That’s a message I keep trying to communicate. If you’re not a flower, the honey bees really don’t care about you.
After a wild six months, my time with the high-rise and aquarium bees came to a close, and I decided to keep things on the ground for future seasons. I wouldn’t say no to managing hives in challenging locations again, but simple access definitely makes things easier, especially with equipment and bees.
