Organic Rooftop Honey
Almost 150,000 Honey Bees have made their way to the roof of The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge and are working day and night to make barrels of delectable organic honey. Executive Chef Derek Ingraham and his culinary team are getting back to the basics, offering dining options with an emphasis on organic, free range & local foods. Taking this philosophy to the next level our Chefs have started growing and harvesting our own, all natural, organic ingredients.
Jasper Rooftop Honey Bees
The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge Culinary team will be tending five bee hives on the roof of the Main Lodge. This delicious honey will be used to make sweet treats for our guests
Why do we have bees?
The main reason of farming our own bees is for the sweet organic honey. With the help of our busy friends we will be able to provide our guests with this authentically local culinary treat. The hives will also be used as a training tool for our apprentices who will look after the hives, extract the honey when the time comes and learn to work with the by-products that are made from bees, wax & pollen in different ways.
Where are the bees kept?
The bees are kept on the roof of The Main Lodge above the Tent City doors. They will be visible to guests to see and get pictures of, but they cannot get close enough to disturb the bees. The hill by the tennis courts provides a great spot for ample viewing and photo opportunities.
How many do we have?
We are starting the season with 5 hives. Each hive has about 8000 domestic European honey bees in it and will grow to about 30000 bees by the end of the summer. This means we will house about 150000 bees in total by summers end. Each hive has one queen the rest are a mix of drones who do not have stingers & workers. The drones sole job is to fly around and mate with the queens. They do pollinate while doing this. After the drone mates with a queen they die. The queens do all the work in the hive and collect most of the pollen, only half ever leave the hive at one time, the rest are busy doing all the work in the hive.