Beehives could be placed on the roofs of institutions such as the city administration buildings, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, and in the Botanical Gardens.
Although beekeeping in Zagreb is banned, just like breeding chickens or pigs, the global trend of urban beekeeping could soon dominate the Croatian capital as well. The idea was put forward by a member of the City Assembly Alen Ostojić, who said that urban beekeeping brings great opportunities for self-employment, as well as a strong economic and tourist potential, reports Večernji List on June 22, 2016.
“Zagreb aspires to be a green and healthy city, and such a city cannot exist without bees, so we propose to the Mayor to allow beekeeping in urban conditions”, said Ostojić. Since Mayor Milan Bandić responded to the Ostojić’s proposal by saying “you are knocking on the open doors”, Ostojić is currently bringing together a team of experts to develop the idea.
He said that beehives could be put on rooftops of institutions such as the city administration buildings, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, and in the Botanical Gardens. “Thanks to numerous flower beds, urban gardens, orchards and parks, there are more and more bees in the city. The beekeeping community gathered around the Pčelinjak Association points out that these are excellent, vital, peaceful honeybees that ‘clean’ our city every morning. These are facts which we should be proud of, since the bees are a strong ecological indicator and are extremely sensitive to any form of pollution”, said Ostojić.
He proposed several measures. “We want to introduce ‘honey breakfasts’ in kindergartens and schools and launch a project of the Beekeeping Museum. We also demand that all city regulations are amended in a way which would allow the keeping and breeding of bees in specific urban conditions. About 200-300 beehives should be placed at certain locations in the city. We would also like to organize promotional activities so that citizens of Zagreb would get to know the benefits of urban bees.”
For comparison, about 200 million bees live in Vienna during the summer, with about 450 beehives located in the green areas of the city.
