Rooftop Honey Melbourne
Vanessa & Matt have been urban beekeepers for 10 years. Starting out with a hive in their garden, they have now expanded Rooftop Honey to over 130 hives in locations dotted across Melbourne’s CBD and suburbs.
They employ traditional methods of beekeeping, using smoke to distract the bees so that honey can be safely harvested by hand. They then extract and bottle all the honey themselves at their production facility. By having a few hives in a variety of locations, the bees have access to a varied selection of plants to pollinate, which they’ve found gives each finished product a unique flavour; even hives in different suburbs produce distinct honeys.
The plight of bees has become an increasingly critical issue over the last few years, as environmental factors have seen their numbers decrease. Matt and Vanessa not only produce honey but also work to educate the community on how important bees are for growing food, with much of what we eat reliant on bee pollination. The Melbourne Emporium location in the very heart of the city is the perfect place for groups and schools to experience how beekeeping works and learn about the important role they serve within our food chain.
You can visit Rooftop Honey for more information about urban beekeeping, and Vanessa & Matt’s work.
Hear more about Rooftop Honey’s story in a video produced by Sean Windsor & Wow Pictures as part of this project.