The iconic Fairmont Royal York hotel in downtown Toronto is opening new facilities for solitary bee guests on its rooftop. The hotel already has six hives for honeybees which produce over 800 pounds of award-winning honey each year that are used in the hotel’s kitchens and in its local micro-brewed beer called “Royal Stinger.”
The new digs are for wild pollinator bees which live alone but are even better pollinators than honey bees. The facility looks like an open book case with lots of twigs, branches, soil and other material in which bees like to nest.
The roof also has a garden which grows various herbs and strawberries which hotel staff hope the bees will find attractive. It serves the dual purpose of pleasing bees and training apprentice chefs on how ingredients are produced.
Bees in decline
There is grave concern about the decline in bee populations in Canada and increasing knowledge about the services they render in pollinating fruits, vegetables and flowers. Pesticides are suspected as being partly to blame for the decline, but so is a loss of habitat. And providing some new habitat is a cause the Fairmont chain has taken on.
“Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is extremely excited about the addition of our new pollinator bee hotel and we look forward providing these pint-sized ‘guests’ with the five-star treatment they so deserve for keeping our ecosystems resilient,” said Alexandra Blum, vice president, public relations, FRHI Hotels & Resorts.
The hotel chain purports to being a sustainablility pioneer with hives at more than 20 of its properties around the world.
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