The Bee Barn

Keeper’s Lodge, Kennington Park, SE11

Our humble beginnings in 2008 started at Kennington Park’s Keeper’s Lodge which was the home of Bee Urban until 2015. We worked extensively to transform the unused garden and derelict outbuilding, carving out new growing beds, planting fruit trees, soft fruit, nectar-rich plants, herbs and flowers. The apiary was home to ten bee hives and you can read all about them on our apiary page.

We constructed a large timber outbuilding – ‘The Bee Barn’ – which provided a space to facilitate our beekeeping operations. It was also used as an educational resource for beekeeping demonstrations and training sessions. Our current site ‘The Hive’ is open to the public for events and open-access sessions.

We continue to provide outreach work across South London and our new building is available as a space for groups, where we do gardening, ecology and beekeeping. We have two volunteer days a week which have regular volunteers from the local community who help maintain the site, as well as being a space for school children and vulnerable adults to learn new skills and spend outdoors in a safe and nurturing environment.

All our buildings are constructed with an ecological dimension – we have a living, intensively planted green roof, and has been built using sustainable reclaimed materials and plants. In the long term we aim increase our renewable energy sources.  All planting has been designed to be nectar rich according to RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) and BBKA (British Beekeepers Association) guidance.

We also have an anaerobic digester and solar water heater from our work with Loo Watt and Imperial College, and a cob oven for summer social events.

There are constructive volunteering opportunities at Bee Urban; these include gardening, beekeeping, construction/carpentry, cob oven construction, cooking, candle making, papermaking and more. If you would like to get involved please click here.

Honey is available from the Kennington Park Cafe or from us on our open days.You can see when our open days are by going to our events page.

Bee Urban also offer loan of equipment to the community for beekeeping, construction and horticultural activities.