South Africa: Rescuing and relocating wild honeybees in Cape Town

Although the Cape honey bee is classified as “not threatened”, these chief pollinators are facing growing pressure in the sprawling South African city of Cape Town.

But in 2018, a father-and-son team, Lourens and Dylan Kruger, formed the Cape Honeybee Conservancy dedicated to rescuing and relocating them.

Since then, they have moved over 250 wild bee colonies from ceilings, houses, walls, trees, and other urban nooks and crannies.

Recently, they rescued about 40,000 wild honeybees who had made their home in a cement garden feature.

A local bee specialist says there are likely millions of colonies in the greater Cape Town area.

Louren Kruger explains why in some cases, wild bee colonies in urban areas are considered problematic.

“They would move into a house, into a vent for instance, and people might have little children and they’re afraid," he says.

"People are inherently afraid of being stung, their children being stung, their animals."

Bee specialist Mike Allsopp says there are as many as millions of wild bee colonies within the greater Cape Town area, most of which do not cause harm.

"There are bees everywhere: wild colonies that come in and move in and then they move out. And for the most part they exist perfectly peacefully, people don’t even know where they are," he says.

"Occasionally you get really big ones that are in a roof or under the floorboards, and they can get really large and problematic.”

Cape honeybees are native to the region and play a key role in pollinating both agricultural crops and indigenous plants and help sustain the Western Cape's remarkable biodiversity.

Before the rescued honeybees can start a new life in a safe rural area, the wild colony needs to be transferred to a beehive.

Fortunately, there is also a lot of farms in the Cape, many of whom are happy to offer the bees a new home.

The team has set up six bee conservancies on farms, including Radford Dale organic wine farm in Elgin which is about an hour and a half drive out of the city.

It already has nine beehives, home to bees translocated from urban areas, which produce honey that is sold by Kruger.

“We grow the grapes organically, we make organic wines, so that limits us a little bit in terms of what we can and cannot do,” says Jeanne Joubert, marketing manager at the wine estate.

“But, it also creates quite an inviting environment for certain bugs to thrive in. Vineyards do not necessarily need bees to be pollinated, but it becomes a very important part of the ecosystem of farming in general,” she says.

Although not essential for vineyards, the relocated bees help support biodiversity in general by pollinating wildflowers and other plants necessary for a thriving ecosystem.

So, the initiative is helping protect residents while preserving the native bees that play a vital role in the region’s unique biodiversity.