Tasting notes

From Kew Gardens’ mega-hive to honeyed beer, the humble bee is having a moment

The sweet success of honey

STANDING, AS I WAS last week, beneath the thrumming mesh frame that is Kew Gardens’ 17m-tall Hive – the inner workings of a beehive imagined in aluminium hexagons and LED lightbulbs that hum and glow in response to vibrations within the gardens’ own apiary – it’s hard not to be struck by the power of the bee. Pollinators extraordinaire whose habitats across the globe are in serious decline, both managed honeybees and wild species have become, quite rightly, the cause célèbre of the food and drink world.

Over a decade ago, Fortnum & Mason installed its first hives on the roof of the Piccadilly store for annual honey harvests. Urban hives are now commonplace (some 300,000 Buckfast honeybees reside on top of The Ritz in the socalled ‘Royal Suite’, among others), and many drinks companies, including Just Bee and Bumble Beer, either plant flowers or donate profits in the name of the insect. The makers of Warner’s Honeybee gin transport 400,000 bees every year to RHS Wisely for a month-long stint of pollination in its heather garden, benefitting both parties.

As I write, the London restaurant Skylon has launched a honey-inspired cocktail list, from which £1 of every bill will be donated to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (I like the sound of the gin-based Queen Bee made with rose champagne). And a timely reprint of Hattie Ellis’s cookbook, Spoonfuls of Honey (Pavilion, £12.99), brings us a sweet reminder of the versatility of this nectar, and the skill of the insects that produce it, without which our plates would be very dull indeed.

Fortnum & Mason’s rooftop beehives

The Queen Bee cocktail, made with gin and rose champagne, at Skylon