the relexa hotel in Berlin offers beekeeping partnership
Bees in danger
Due to monocultures in agriculture there is often a lack of the necessary plant diversity, which offers the bees an adequate habitat. Climate change and the use of pesticides also have a negative impact. A decline in the bee population is the worrying consequence, which has been observed more and more in recent years.
Without bees, not only would our plants be threatened, also the bees make a great contribution to agricultural production by pollinating the flowers of cocoa, vanilla, passion fruit and so on and so forth.
The percentage of crops we’d lose without bees: 100% Almonds, 90% Apples, 90% Blueberries, 90% Cucumbers, 80% Cherries, 70% Watermelons. (source: https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org)
But what can we do?
The relexa hotel Berlin started a “partnership” with two Salubria honeybee hive
When it comes to honeybees, you probably wouldn’t imagine that in the middle of a city a beehive could exist. Berlin is so green that the flying humming honey producers can find enough landing spots in the urban jungle to collect delicious nectar for their sweet yellow substance.
Since 23rd April 2019, we have had very special guests at the relexa hotel in Berlin: two bee colonies have found a new home on the roof of our kitchen in the middle of one of our idyllic courtyards. In the first two weeks, the busy nectar collectors have set up their new surroundings. The beehive, that was installed by beekeeper Wolfgang Zell, only consisted of the "living room and bedroom". Later the hive received “store rooms” to make sure the bees had enough space to collect the precious honey. These were completed by May 2019. Our two bee colonies now had enough room to fill theses chambers.
During all this work, we were able to observe the beehive, their behaviours and even admire the honeybee queen. You can recognise the queen by the red marking. In July we were looking forward to the first honey harvest, probably linden blossom ... of course, each honeycomb is thoroughly tested according to the EU food requirements before filling it into the jars.
Our first harvest
The honey harvest was to take place on 26th July 2019. When the honeycomb was removed, Beekeeper Mr. Zell noticed that our hardworking bees had used every available space within the hive, therefor is was not possible to take out the honeycomb itself. Little challenges happen all the time, when you start something new. However, this problem was solved easily. A partition between the wax frames was the solution for the situation.
On 31st July 2019, beekeeper Wolfgang Zell was able to remove some frames from the hive - of course leaving some reserves for the bees. And we all got to sample it: a piece of golden honeycomb. Delicious and absolutely organic
