Made in London: Bermondsey Street Bees

For the latest in our #MadeinLondon series, Victoria Stewart meets Dale Gibson, urban beekeeper and founder of Bermondsey Street Bees
In the shadow of the Shard: Dale Gibson
By Victoria Stewart14 September 2015

Dale Gibson has always lived in London, apart from a brief spell at Cambridge University. Stockbroker by day, beekeeper by night, Gibson was down on his allotment near Bermondsey Spa nine years ago when he spotted a bee on a damson tree that was about to blossom and it occurred to him that he could have bees on his roof, even though then he “knew nothing about them”. He has since become what he calls a ‘Bermondseyshire farmer,’ harvesting and selling pots of exceptional, award-winning honey under his Bermondsey Street Bees brand, selling ‘guest’ honeys, and advising others on how to do the same - such as the new Soho Farmhouse. This month, his honey has been nominated for the ES Urban Farming awards. I talked to him about what it’s like being an urban beekeeper.

How many types of honey do you sell?

Our Bermondsey Street Honey is produced in liquid honey, ‘chunk’ honey - a piece of comb in a jar of liquid honey - and pure comb honey formats. The honey we produce for clients belongs to their own hives and terroir. Our brief from Soho House was to set up an apiary on site to pollinate the kitchen gardens and produce liquid and comb honey frames for the Farmhouse’s breakfast table, kitchen and deli. We also source exceptional honeys to order for restaurants and hotels that can't have their own hives. In addition to this, we select our own 'guest' honeys from other artisanal beekeepers, which we sell with a detailed provenance under our Metro (urban honeys) and Union (country honeys) labels.

Which chefs or restaurants have you worked with or consulted for since you started?

We started in 2011, when OXO’s Stuart Dring was at Delfina. We won our first award, Restaurant Honey Of The Year, that year. Our recent collaborations include Lee Westcott at Typing Room and Tom Aikens at Soho Farmhouse. Our Bermondsey Street Honey is [also] now on the breakfast table at Tom Kerridge’s Hand and Flowers, and we have some exciting apiary design and installation projects in the pipeline with top chefs for early 2016.

Do you like being an urban beekeeper?

It’s a great lifestyle to have - intense but fairly passive in EC2 and then relaxation here. I’m so lucky to have my hobby and my passion on my roof, I don’t have to go to another borough. I can just gently be here.

What’s it like running a business in London?

My family tradition is running small businesses in London. My maternal grandfather ran a trucking business from the arches in Druid Steet during the Second World War and my father ran a family furniture and printing business up the road, so it’s really very much in my blood.

Are there extra responsibilities you must consider for beekeeping in London?

I think there is a high level of responsibility to have placid bees, and also no matter how placid the bees are, if they’re hungry they’re going to be angry. So it’s really important for people to consider the forage situation before they go ahead… [I’m about to launch] this Apis Forage Index - a snapshot of forage suitability (things like wind, rain) of an apiary site for sustaining a beehive or a number of beehives. Unbelievably there are 635 apiaries within a 10km radius, so London is intensively rammed with hives. There’s a hugely positive aura around bees, which is great, but it means we have a huge responsibility to keep them in a way that maintains that world.

How do your 'guest' honeys work?

The area is richly endowed with good forage, and we know how to treat the honey, so we’ve taken a leaf out of Monmouth Coffee’s book. Of course they don’t grow coffee beans - they get them delivered in sacks, they know the producers, they then roast the coffee, process it and add their value that way. So having ‘guest’ brands which are small artisanal producers [means that when] we sell out after six weeks, or at Christmas, we’ve at least got something to show to people – we’ve got a honey from Custom House in the east end of London, which is absolutely amazing.

How much have you sold since you started?

Of our own honey, we’ve probably sold 700 jars - but that’s our limit. We’re not going to put more hives in with the expectation of getting any more honey, because you get diminishing returns if you concentrate all your resources in one place.

How much time do you spend with your hives?

I go up to my rooftop to inspect each hive once every 10 days in the May-July swarming season, at a minimum. I also go up amongst the bees anytime, for the simple pleasure of it. I’ve [also] been to the Cotswolds a good deal this year, particularly in that May-July timeframe. Longer intervals prevail when the swarming risk has passed… What you’ve got to do is keep very intensive records, writing up what you see in each hive each time. The first thing I do before a planned beehive intervention is to read the notes… then I think of the equipment I’ll need and then I keep my ears and eyes open. I’m checking for health, stores, space, the wax and the comb [to tell me what’s happening at the heart of the hive].

What is the process of taking the honey from hive to jar?

Once I have taken the frames of raw honey off the hives and tested it, the extraction can begin. First, I use warm air to gently melt back the wax cappings on both sides of the honeycomb. Then I spin the frames, eight at a time, in a centrifugal stainless steel drum, [and the liquid honey pitter-patters out]. I then let the honey flow out… into a filtering bucket. The honey is cold-filtered twice more, left to ripen for a few days, then poured into jars and hand labelled. It’s a labour intensive, artisanal process in which we take enormous pride.

Do you have time to eat out?

My first priority is that the bees have enough to eat, so we are always planting and planning new forage for local pollinators. But we often eat out locally, not least because in our 10 years on Bermondsey Street, some great restaurants have sprung up: Josè is just opposite us, Casse-Croûte is a firm favourite and Zucca goes from strength to strength.

Are you collaborating with any other London producers?

Our honey went into the first batch of Hiver Beers, produced by Hannah Rhodes just down the road. We have a great relationship with Hannah and the beer is fantastically tasty. We are working with Christian Jensen who does Jensen's Gin, so that’s for our honey gin.

To buy Dale Gibson’s Bermondsey Street Honey or guest honeys, visit bermondseystreetbees.co.uk

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