Are you looking for child-friendly activities in London? If your children love nature, adore hands-on learning and might like to learn some more about bees, then this is the Airbnb experience for you. This is how we booked an Urban Bees Airbnb experience in London’s busy Kings Cross and how you can too.
Urban Bees AirBNB Experience
Whilst looking for kid-friendly London things to do, I came across this Airbnb experience offering an exciting few hours trampling through London’s King Cross, learning about city nature & animals with Alison from Urban Bees.
It costs £49 per person, and although it isn’t the cheapest experience, given our kid’s enthusiastic rapture for bees and my need to keep them entertained for a few hours, it suited us perfectly.
In fact, it turned out to be one of the best things we’ve ever done in London and they had an absolute blast.
Meeting Alison at the German Gymnasium: Urban Bees Airbnb Experience in Kings Cross
Kings Cross is one of those areas that I’ve rarely visited with any real intention. Maybe this is similar to your experience? It’s one of those ‘pass-through’ locations that feature as a transport intersection and nothing else. If you’ve a Harry Potter fan, you might have been to the train station too?
The last time I visited Kings Cross was back in 1999 when I had no children and no responsibilities. So imagine my surprise when I discover that it’s been totally rejuvenated and that many of the town planners have been collaborating with Urban Bees to develop bee-friendly areas. Isn’t that fantastic? The entire area is brilliant and we had a great time.
It is here that we discover the birdcage swing and the swanky cafe ‘The German Gymnasium‘. If you haven’t been I wouldn’t advise you take your children either. It is one of those places that we walked in and promptly out of within thirty seconds rapidly trying to hide the kids behind me. It’s a bit nice for kids who just wanted to wear their trainers & jump in muddy puddles.
Instead, we hung out by the birdcage, waiting for Alison to collect us.
Camley Street Natural Park
It was bitterly cold and we hadn’t prepared well enough for this. I had forgotten how quickly London weather can change and despite leaving Hammersmith in blazing sunshine, the wind whipped our faces as we sauntered up to Camley Street Natural Park.
We meet up with our other tour members who are a fascinating mix of people from all over the world. There’s eight of us in total including two men from the Midlands who started beekeeping last year! It is brilliant to hear their stories and to be able to pick their brains.
Camley Street Park is owned by London Wildlife Trust and I am astounded that this haven can exist in such close proximity to the world’s largest construction site! I learn that this reserve was created from wasteland (once used as a coal station) and is now a haven for wildlife, including a heron which we stop and watch in the reeds.
Remember to take your camera as there is lots to see here.
What An Oasia In The Heart Of London
We were whisked quickly through the wetland habitats to the apiary section and I promise the kids that we will definitely return for them to pond dip and watch dragonflies. I cannot believe this oasis exists so close to central London!
If you’re interested in supporting the London Wildlife Trust, you can become a MEMBER.
Discovering The Apiaries On Our Urban Bees Airbnb Experience
An apiary is a place where beehives of honey bees are kept. Beekeepers (also known as apiarists) have been previously trained by Urban Bees and can come here to practice and have hives and collect honey if they choose to. Not all beekeepers take the honey.
Will You Dress Up?
Alison has a treat in store for the kids and lets them dress up in bee suits. They LOVE this. They’re now so desperate for us to own a hive and to care for and see the bees. The boy says to me
One of the kids casually drops in “I never want this tour to end, it’s so good”.
Opening Hives Is Weather Dependent
The temperature is too cold for us to open up a working hive – Hives must be kept at 32 degrees and it’s a barmy 8 which will quite possibly kill them off. Not really what we had in mind so instead we open up a virtual hive and learn all about the world of bees.
Alison has slides prepared for us so we can see and learn all about the bees and how they live.
Learn From A Virtual Hive
Alison takes apart the virtual hive and we’re able to see old combs that bees previously laid. The kids are fascinated with its stickiness and can’t stop touching it. I am doing nothing to quench their thirst for bees and they look at me with big eyes and cheeky grins asking if we can come back later in the summer to see a working hive.
I think you can guess by now that Alison was a big hit with the kids!
The Queen Bee
In a nutshell, I’ll try to keep it brie, each hive can have only one queen bee. The queen bee is a slave; her sole purpose is to lay eggs. She doesn’t leave the hive or collect pollen/nectar, she has no pollen baskets, no proboscis (tongue) and doesn’t feed herself.
A queen bee can lay up to two thousand eggs in one day and more than a million eggs in a lifetime. She is able to control the sex of the eggs she lays. The queen lays a fertilized (female) or unfertilized (male) egg according to the width of the cell.
Each egg hatches into a larva in three days and is fed with special milk called Royal Jelly by the nurse bees. The larva then turns into a pupa and finally develops into adult bees.
When a hive gets too crowded, the queen bee lays eggs that will hatch into new queen bees. The queen then sends out bees to scout for a new home. This is called swarming and it’s critical to healthy bee colonies. When a place is found, she leaves the old hive and is followed by a swarm of worker bees.
Searching for bees with our Urban Bees Airbnb experience
It’s a bit cold and windy for bees but we do spot a few out and about. Aren’t they adorable?
Pollen vs Nectar
Do honey bees eat pollen? Not exactly and I’ll explain why.
Nectar is a sweet substance produced by certain plants to attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. These creatures are called pollinators. Bees collect nectar and turn it into honey however whilst they’re collecting the nectar, they accidentally transfer pollen (from male flowers) from their legs to the female flowers.
Bees have incredibly long and pointy proboscis (tongues) which work like straws. The bee unrolls her tongue which is nearly 3cm long, dipping it into a flower and sucks up the nectar. Bees don’t have lips or teeth instead they have mandibles; a set of hinged gates that open and close at the middle. These are used for chewing beeswax when making honeycombs.
Pollen is a fine powder of microscopic particles that is produced from the male flower that can fertilise the female flower to produce seed. Pollen is produced by anthers, the male reproductive organs found in most flowering plants.
The bees only intentionally collect the pollen in tiny sacks on their legs called scopas which they feed to the larvae. It’s packed full of protein and helps them grow. It’s also a great view for apiarists because it signifies that the Queen is laying eggs.
Why Do We Need Bees?
Without bees, humanity may cease to exist – certainly without the infiltration of shoulder shuddering companies like Monsanto and Bayer anyway! Bees are our saviours and much of our food couldn’t be produced without them.
Cross-pollination helps at least 30 percent of the world’s crops and 90 percent of our wild plants to thrive. Without bees to spread seeds, many plants—including food crops—would die off.
Wing Clipping
Wing clipping is a growing common practice amongst apiarists but not something that Alison does. PHEW! My personal opinion is that it’s cruel as it prevents the queen bee from naturally swarming. The queen bee will still try to leave the hive but will either die because she can’t fly or die because the bees will kill her off (she’s no longer useful so they kill her).
Honey is not bee sick. Bees have two stomachs. One stomach is similar to ours and receives and processes food however their second stomach, called a honey sac, works as a storage unit for nectar collected from flowers. The honey sac holds almost 70 mg of nectar.
The Dancing Bees
Bees are incredibly intelligent animals and have their own unique communication skills. In 1973, Karl Ritter von Frisch won a Nobel prize for cracking the honeybees’ communication code. Honeybees waggle and dance to tell other bees in the hives the location of flower nectar sources, the flying time to the sources and even the wind speed. The Awesome Honeybee Dance is a video that will show you how.
Some bee facts you may not know
- A bee flaps its wings an amazing 230 times a second.
- Weather affects bees’ flight. Bees can detect changes in air pressure. If it’s going to rain and air pressure drops, they stay in their hives.
- They consume the honey that they make for food during the cold months when nectar is scarce.
- A honeybee has five eyes. Three eyes are located on the top of the bee’s head in the form of a triangle. These eyes are very small. The two larger eyes are located on each side of the head. These are “compound” eyes, being made up of thousands of tiny lenses.
- To make one pound of honey, bees need to visit nearly three million flowers and travel fifty thousand miles (eighty thousand km). This is more than twice the distance around the earth!
The Grain Store & The Bee App
After we’ve finished spotting bees and the kids have reluctantly removed their apiarist outfits, we head into the heart of Kings Cross. Here we learn about the downloadable BEE APP, a Kings Cross Bee Trail where (during summer months of June-September) you can partake in an interactive 60-minute trail following, learning about and watching bees in Kings Cross.
These new areas in Kings Cross have been working with naturists and apiarists to provide bees with areas they can still forage – despite the urbanity.
As a bonus for partaking in the Bee App, you can receive discounts to eat at places like the Grain Store where the menu looks delicious.
Walking to the Skip Garden
By this stage, we’re freezing but we’re led away by Alison on the promise of hot coffee at the Skip Garden. If you come to this experience, don’t forget to bring more clothes than we did!
The Skip Garden is a restaurant-cafe-garden-allotment that describes itself as a sustainable urban garden with a twist. I am intrigued but mostly I’m just looking forward to hot coffee lol.
The Skip Garden.
Almost hidden amongst the cranes and new high rise developments of swanky apartments is this collection of wooden and glass huts surrounded by deck chairs and flowers. Surreal is one word to describe it but after finding the cafe we are blown away by its charm.
They Cater For Vegans
The Skip Cafe has a range of vegan milks and foods. Of course, we ordered huge hot chocolates whilst Alison tried to herd us into a smaller shed for our tasting session.
I am famished, foolishly having had no breakfast before we left, so I promise the kids we’ll go back in after we’ve finished. They are selling cauliflower and cumin soup that smells divine.
To Bee Or Not To Bee: Urban Bees Airbnb experience
Should I eat honey? Of all the questions we have asked ourselves in the last three years since becoming plant-based, this is the one we deflect back to the most. Should we or should we not bee (deliberate sic) eating honey?
What is our decision? Well… we have decided that we will only eat honey IF we know the apiarist and we have a full understanding of how they operate. For example, we need to know that the apiarist does NOT cut the queen bee’s wings, we want to know that the apiarist leaves the hive with enough honey to survive the winter months and that the apiarist does NOT feed the colony sugar.
The kids decide that they will try all of the local kinds of honey but I only try Urban Bees Honey as I know how Alison practises.
Making Wildflower Seed Bombs
The Skip Garden sell these wildflower seed bombs for 50p. They’re made of clay and contain a number of wildflower seeds such as cornflower. We get busy and messy rolling a few up for the Skip Garden to sell.
By tossing them on the ground you can watch your rainbow of bee attracting flowers grow. If you can’t get to the Skip Garden, you could buy some online or even make your own.
We leave Alison and our team of eight others with our little brown, paper bag that Alison has made us. We discover inside the bag, two kinds of honey and some leaflets and then we make our way to the train station.
The kids are sad that it’s over. They have learnt so much it has surprised me and they’re still so enthusiastic to become apiarists. They make me promise we’ll come back in the summer to see Alison again (whether she likes it or not) and that we’ll bring Dad with us. How can I say no?!
Fast Forward A Week
A week later and we’re in Sardinia. The internet dies for three days and as the majority of our studies are done online I start to wish we’d brought the kids workbooks with us (they weigh a lot). I suddenly remember our lovely brown paper bags, crammed full of leaflets and learning material. We set our selves up on the table outside and spend a few hours learning about the garden and what plants we can grow to help bees.
The Kids Even Did Some Cooking
With a lack of internet, we decided to do some cooking and develop these vegan pancakes (only the pancake is vegan). The kids chop their bananas and use their pots of honey to caramelise them. They love cooking and this keeps them occupied for an hour!
Here’s How YOU Can Book This Tour
Do you fancy having your own bee experience?
If you’re interested in knowing more about bees, you can book this EXPERIENCE with Alison from Urban Bees. I cannot begin to tell you just how much fun our kids had and how meeting passionate people like Alison is so important to their development of life long learning.
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