Hotels build buzz for green efforts with rooftop beehives

SANFRANCISCO—At the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, there are more than 370 rooms inside and hundreds of thousands of bees buzzing above in rooftop hives outside. Yes, honeybees. Aware of the wellpublicized environmental threats to honeybees that have reduced numbers worldwide, seven San Francisco hotels have built hives on their rooftops. The sustainability effort also benefits the hotels as the bees produce honey for cocktails, food and spa treatments. It’s the latest in a series of environmental programs at hotels that includes low-flow toilets and aggressive recycling programs.

“This is not about making money, it’s really about raising awareness about sustainability,” said Melissa Farrar, spokeswoman at the Fairmont in San Francisco. “There’s not one solution so we wanted to do our part to help. It’s part of the bigger effort for helping the planet.”

Farrar said the four hives on the rooftop garden support about 250,000 bees and produce about 1,000 pounds of honey each year.

Locally made honey

In this foodie city, the honey is used in such things as the Clift’s The Peerless Purple drink with gin-infused lavender, honey syrup and lavender bitters, and their compressed watermelon salad with lavender-infused honey and goat cheese. Honey is used in beer at the Fairmont Hotel, and the jars of the product are sold in the gift shop. At the W, they make honey ice cream.

The beehives at hotels are not new, but the effort is growing every year.

Fairmont’s first beehives were built in 2008 at the company’s hotels in Toronto and in Vancouver in an effort to help combat colony collapse disorder. Since then, dozens have been installed at Fairmonts from Seattle to China and Africa.

At the Clift, high above the city on the rooftop garden, 10 hives are buzzing with activity. Most guests don’t even know they are there. But the fruits of their labor are evident in the cocktails and food. You won’t find the squeezable honey bear container in Chef Thomas Weibull’s kitchen.

“Since we are chefs in California, we like to use a lot of things that are local,” he said, talking about his pork adobo appetizer with a honey glaze. “Ninety five percent of our products are local and sustainable.”

The bees are on track to produce more than 70 pounds of honey per hive by this summer. The colony is expected to grow at least 800,000 by next year.

Eric Risberg / Associated Press Beekeeper Spencer Marshall checks the hives on a garden deck last month outside the Fairmont Hotel, one of seven San Francisco hotels hosting bees.