SCIENCE&NATURE
In San Francisco, hotels find beekeeping to be good for business –
and community. BY BAILEY BISCHOFF / STAFFHotels host bees as honored guests
SAN FRANCISCOA
t the Fairmont San
Francisco, the well-
heeled visitors arriv-
ing through the lobby
aren’t the five-star hotel’s only
guests. On the hotel’s rooftop
terrace, above the rush and bus-
tle of San Francisco’s city streets,
a fainter hum can be heard – the
buzz of bees.
Beekeeper Spencer Marshall
pries open a white, wooden box
that houses thousands of bees and
pulls out a frame that vibrates with
life. The hive sits nestled among
garden boxes overflowing with
lavender and rosemary, a delicate
contrast to the jagged skyscrapers
that loom in the distance.
Bees have become
more commonplace
residents at hotels,
especially in San
Francisco, where 10
hotels maintain ter-
race or rooftop hives.
Urban beekeeping
allows hotels to
market sustainabil-
ity, harvest honey,
and raise awareness
about the challenges
bees face. Rooftop
apiaries have been
popping up across
the United States in the past decade, from
San Francisco to Chicago to New York.
“When companies have honeybees, it
helps in a few different ways ... by bringing
awareness to the fact that our bees need
flowers that are clean and free
of pesticides in order to feed and
that our bees need habitat,” says
Becky Masterman, extension edu-
cator and program director of the University
of Minnesota Bee Squad in St. Paul.
Urban beekeeping has been on the rise
for the past decade, says Dr. Masterman.
“The popularity has been growing ever since
the news started reporting high numbers
of bee losses in 2006,” she says. That year,
commercial honeybee losses increased
dramatically, as much as 30 to 90 percent
of each hive, because of mite infestations,
harmful pesticides, declining habitat, and amysterious phenomenon known as colony
collapse disorder, in which bees were seen
leaving hives in devastating numbers.
Bees are an essential element of agri-
cultural economies, especially in Califor-
nia, which produces one-third
of the vegetables in the US and
two-thirds of its fruits and nuts,
according to the California De-
partment of Food and Agriculture. At
pollination time, commercial beekeepers
provide truckloads of European honeybees,
Apis mellifera, which are not native to North
America. Wild bee species play a significant
role in this process, but the US agricultural
industry has come to rely on commercial
bees for much of its pollination needs. Per-
sistent losses of these commercial hives
could eventually be felt at the grocery store.
Mr. Marshall has served as the Fair-mont’s bee whisperer since 2010. Initially
doubtful that the urban location would offer
enough resources to sustain the bees, he
says he has been pleasantly surprised. Each
year he harvests 1,000 pounds of honey at
the Fairmont, which currently hosts nine
hives and as many as half a million bees.
The bees offer hotels more than honey.
A growing number of guests actively seek
out hotels that are committed to sustain-
ability and locally sourced menu options,
says Melissa Farrar, director of marketing
communications for the Fairmont. The hotel
chain plays host to 40 honeybee apiaries
and wild bee hotels around the world. At the
Fairmont San Francisco, harvested honey
adds flavor to salad dressings, ice cream,
and honey madeleines at the hotel.
Beekeeping also offers hotels a chance to
work together. The Clift, another San Fran-
cisco hotel, is part of a partnership of nine
hotels that share beekeeping resources, best
practices, and a beekeeper. “On the street
level, all the hotels are competing with each
other,” says Clift manager Michael Pace.
“But then on the rooftop we’re all sharing
resources ... and we help each other out.”LIVING
TOGETHERPHOTOS BY BAILEY BISCHOFF/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
PENTHOUSE SUITE: Beekeeper Spencer Marshall
(above) checks the health of the Fairmont San
Francisco’s hives. San Francisco’s Clift hotel (left)
introduced bees to its 16-story-high roof in 2016.r^ Questions? Comments? Email the science
team at [email protected].