With a lifelong fascination for Nature and insects in particular, it was inevitable that it would be love at first sting between our founder Thomas and the tirelessly industrious residents of a South London hive during a beekeeping taster session. Prompted by that initial captivating experience, Thomas founded the beekeeping and urban ecological conservation partnership Metropollen back in 2017. The aim of the company is to offer customers the finest locally produced honey from our own hives and entice other budding apiphiles into taking up beekeeping with engaging talks and practical ‘hive dive’ experiences.

Sustainable Beekeeping

Core to the company’s ethos is to practise ecologically sympathetic beekeeping. We strive to achieve this by limiting the number of hives at each of our apiaries (sites housing honey bees), so as not deprive the local populations of pollinator species of nectar and pollen. We also work to offset the loss of these vital plant resources by offering our apiary hosts saplings of native flowering tree species such as hawthorn, dogwood and blackthorn.

In addition, a proportion of the money received from the sale of our bees’ exquisite local, raw honey and other hive products is used to support the conservation of our stunning and ecologically important suburban woodland, Bushes and Briars Wood, which we saved from the ever-looming threat of development. Further details of the history of the wood and our activities there can be found on the page shown above.

You can support both our bees and environmental conservation efforts by purchasing our bees’ alluring hive products and Metropollen hive dive experiences from our online store and in person at our markets listed on our calendar.