San Jose Fairmont Celebrates a Honey Harvest from its Rooftop Hives
Bee Our Guest
Guests of the ultra-exclusive South Tower roof of the San Jose Fairmont are provided a few extra perks: 24-hour check-in, custom rooms, their own elevator and even a private pool. But this isn’t home to the bridal or presidential suite; it’s where the hotel’s busiest guests stay. Thousands of mason bees live and work in a specially designed “bee hotel” on the lower roof of the South Tower. A miniature version of the Fairmont’s Main Tower building, the bee hotel was installed in April 2013 in celebration of Earth Day. By focusing on an underutilized architectural feature, the hotel created a support platform for pollinators, inviting nature into an urban environment.
The bees live in four honeybee hives with each hive housing approximately 10,000 bees in December and as many as 60,000 in June. And where there are bees there is honey: Tended to by a private bee butler—professional beekeeper Doug Smith of Bees at Home—the urban hives produce between four to six gallons of honey, which is extracted in the fall and sometimes in the spring as well. The hives currently produce just enough honey for use in the hotel restaurants. This house-harvested honey is regularly used in soups, salad dressings, pastries, cheese boards and desserts and in special seasonal tasting menus.
And these bees live in the lap of luxury. Bees can’t swim, so a special bee pool equipped with floating wine corks for them to land on was built to provide a source of water handy to the hives. After a few laps around the pool and some R&R, they’re ready to get back to the business of making honey.
This fall, Fairmont San Jose will offer a taste of its South Tower house honey during the hotel’s Honey Harvest Celebration from October 19–21. Here you can sample some of the menu items–like crab cakes with honey lemon aioli and a honey-poached pear tart, or order up a Fairmont Bee’s Knees cocktail—all featuring the rooftop honey produced from their buzzing bee retreat.
