PEAK BEE POPULATION - COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER

[basserdan]

Buzzy accommodations: luxury hotels give bees a boost

By Jordi Lippe
9 Jun 2016


Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa created a wine barrel ‘hotel’ for bees

Fairmont is upping the buzz at ten of its hotels, by working with Pollinator Partnership to create rooftop beehives—which they're calling bee hotels—to help increase the wild bee population. Fairmont is not the first to do so (the Waldorf Astoria New York and Peninsula Paris also have beehives on their rooftops), but they might just be the first to do so on a brand level.

And these insects are getting some pretty sweet digs. The bee hotels were designed with their luxury home base in mind, including a wine barrel bee hotel at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa and a miniature version of the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, to a design that features the Washington monument at the Fairmont in DC.

A bee hotel is also coming to the Plaza in New York: It will be French-inspired, like the hotel itself, and was developed in partnership with the Central Park Conservancy and Fairmont’s international Bee Sustainable partner, River of Flowers.

To make things a little sweeter for guests, executive chefs at participating Fairmont Hotels & Resorts have developed special menu items with ingredients that rely on bees for pollination. ‘It is critical that we find ways to protect the bee community and give them a place to nest,’ said chef Todd English, who runs the food hall at the Plaza. “Some of my favorite ingredients, such as tomatoes and eggplant, only exist due to pollinator bees.”

A series of Bee Sustainable packages will also be available throughout the summer with participating hotels offering 10 percent off the daily rate and a $50 (£34) dining credit per stay. Ten dollars (£7) from each stay will also be donated to Pollinator Partnership to support important bee research and programming.

http://www.wallpaper.com/travel/fairmont-bee-hotels#