Tokyo’s Ginza district is usually abuzz with shoppers and office workers, but high above its skyscrapers nature-lovers have created a home for real busy bees — the ones that make honey.
It’s part of a project to bring a slice of natural life back to the center of the world’s largest urban sprawl, a cityscape home to more than 30 million people that stretches far beyond the horizon.
Eleven stories above the heart of the Tokyo concrete jungle — with its beehive office partitions and swarms of suit-clad worker-bees — enthusiasts have stacked up beehives dripping with golden honey.
PHOTO: AFP
“Let’s enjoy the harvest, but be careful you don’t have an accident,” urban beekeeper-in-chief Kazuo Takayasu tells his fellow volunteers from behind the protective fine-mesh net covering his face.
Clad in white body suits, the crew gets to work, squeezing out the glistening syrup using a simple centrifugal machine they crank by hand as a cloud of bees breaks free from the honeycombs.
“Don’t be scared. They don’t sting unless you harm them,” says Satoshi Nagai, 49, who has taken a break from his desk at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. “Try the honey. The scent has a touch of citrus.”
PHOTO: AFP
The honey is largely organic, he said, because pesticide use has been banned in Tokyo city parks and gardens including the Imperial Palace, about 1.5km away, where the bees collect much of their nectar.
“Through beekeeping, you get to learn how harmful pesticides are for insects,” he said. “It makes you think about your hobby of playing golf on courses which cannot be maintained without pesticides.”
The beekeepers may be an odd sight in the Japanese capital, but they are not the only urban farmers — on a rooftop just blocks away, barefoot farmers were recently wading through almost knee-high mud to plant a wet rice field.
PHOTO: AFP
On top of the building of the Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Co, its employees and their spouses and children are screaming with excitement as they stomp barefoot, the mud squelching between their toes.
“Good job, good job! Well done!” says Asami Oda, 56, the vice president of Hakutsuru’s Tokyo office, who takes care of the rice paddies every day. “We harvest 60kg of rice every year, from which we make 80L of sake. Of course it’s organic. I like having a pesticides-free harvest, which is also good for the honey bees,” he says.
Projects such as these have gained attention here this year as Japan readies to host a 193-nation international conference on biodiversity, which aims to find ways to stem the world’s massive species loss.
The 10th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity will be held in the central city of Nagoya in October to discuss a pressing environmental issue that has received less attention in recent years than climate change.
Animal and plant species are disappearing around the world at the fastest rate known in geological history and most of these extinctions are tied to human activity, the UN Environment Programme says.
Species under threat include 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of known amphibians and 12 percent of known birds, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Earth is now losing a species about once every 20 minutes, the non-profit group Conservation International estimates.
Scientists warn that wildlife habitat destruction is destroying ecosystems that give humans “environmental services” such as clean water and air and are vital for climate control and food production.
Honeybees are a case in point in Japan.
The price of honeybees has doubled in recent years after imports were banned to prevent the spread of parasites and as local populations declined in a phenomenon that beekeepers have blamed on pesticide use.
Because of the shortage of bees that help pollination, farmers have reported that fruits don’t grow well enough to satisfy urban consumers.
“We’ve received a number of complaints from beekeepers that pesticides kill honeybees,” Kazuo Kimura of the Japan Beekeepers Association says.
Japanese scientists taking part in the biodiversity meeting have discussed ways to convince Japan’s highly urbanized public how important biodiversity is.
“Urban beekeeping and rice growing are good examples of how human beings can reshape their relationship with nature,” says Kazuhiko Takeuchi, director of the Institute for Sustainability and Peace at the UN University in Tokyo. “Above all, it’s effective in changing people’s mindsets.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
DETERRENCE: Along with US$500 million in military aid and up to US$2 billion in loans and loan guarantees, the bill would allocate US$400 million to countering PRC influence The US House of Representatives on Friday approved an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2025 that includes US$500 million in military aid for Taiwan. The legislation, which authorizes funding for the US Department of State, US foreign operations and related programs for next year, passed 212-200 in the Republican-led House. The bill stipulates that the US would provide no less than US$500 million in foreign military financing for Taiwan to enhance deterrence across the Taiwan Strait, and offer Taipei up to US$2 billion in loans and loan guarantees for the same purpose. The funding would be made available under the US’ Foreign Military
WARNING: China has stepped up harassment of foreign vessels after its new regulation took effect last month, an official said, citing an incident in the Diaoyutai Islands The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday linked China’s seizure of a Taiwanese fishing vessel illegally operating in its territorial waters to Beijing’s new regulation authorizing the China Coast Guard to seize boats in waters it claims. Chinese officials boarded and then seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel operating near China’s coast close to Kinmen County late on Tuesday and took it to a Chinese port, the CGA said. The Penghu-registered squid fishing vessel Da Jin Man No. 88 (大進滿88) was boarded and seized by China Coast Guard east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay (料羅灣), 17.5 nautical miles (32.4km) from Taiwan’s restricted waters off Kinmen,