Keeping Bees at Fairmont Hotel, Vancouver

Graeme Evans, director of housekeeping at Vancouver’s Fairmont Waterfront hotel, opens a hive last week to show off the bees and their honey to guests. A beekeeper, Evans keeps beehives on a deck at the hotel. And no, he doesn’t wear protective gear. Photograph by Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

Bees cause buzz at Fairmont hotel

Three hives on third-floor deck provide kitchen with honey, guests with stories

Graeme Evans is undoubtedly Vancouver’s nattiest – and most hospitable – beekeeper.

You won’t catch Evans in one of those bulky, netted helmets and spacesuits that most of his colleagues don when tending their hives. He looks after his trio of nests while wearing a dapper, crisply pressed suit. And tie.

Then again, Evans is director of housekeeping for the posh downtown Fairmont Waterfront hotel.

And beekeeping is just part of his busy day ensuring that guest facilities pass muster.

Those facilities grew to include the hives, and a lush, bee-friendly garden surrounding them, several years ago when the international hotel chain decided to adopt a signature environmental program for each of its facilities.

Evans thought immediately of beekeeping, given what he knew of the massive threats faced by the world’s bee populations and their key role in agriculture everywhere.

The hotel liked the idea and set up the hives in what was once a pretty but nectar-free stretch of ivy bed on the north side of the hotel’s third floor above the busy downtown streets.

The hives, just metres from the spa’s outdoor pool and just across the roof from the hotel’s kitchen garden, are thriving.

And Evans’ idea has caught fire with the hotel chain. Toronto’s Royal York and New York’s Algonquin hotels both host bees now, too. So do the chain’s hotels in Dallas and Singapore, he says.

Locally, it’s meant heavier pollination of plants within a six-kilometre radius, including Stanley Park. Ultra-locally, it’s meant the hotel kitchen gardens bear massive loads of everything from apples to pumpkins.

By Christina Montgomery,
The Province Newspaper
June 7, 2009