Companies Tackling Urban Beekeeping

Recently, we received "urban pure" honey produced by our clients at Beanfield Metroconnect. When we heard the story of where it came from, we had to find out more about the concept of Urban Beekeeping.

Bee-nfield honey (sorry we had to)

Beanfield Metroconnect is the largest independent fibre network in Toronto. They recently celebrated their 30th anniversary, where they were giving away the honey.

Beanfield works with urban beekeeping company, Alvéole to produce liquid gold. They've installed two beehives, one for each of their locations. They have beekeepers that come and take care of the hive and at the end of the season harvest the honey!

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It’s everywhere!

Urban Beekeeping has been a popular topic for many years now. It aims to tackle the problem of the threatened honeybee population. Metropolitan cities like Toronto and Montreal are popular places for urban beekeeping. This is due to strict anti-pesticide laws and local green spaces filled with diverse plants.

Beehives are existing on the rooftops of schools, hotels and businesses all over the city. Our friends at CBC and University of Toronto have been doing it for some time.

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We love working with businesses and CBC is one of our absolute favourites. We began our partnership three years ago from a TV show in Montreal, of all things. Before there was an Alvéole Toronto one of our founders, Alex, would take the train - bee boxes, smoker and all - from Montreal every other week to maintain the hives. Three years and twelve hives later, our bees are settled in both @CBCMontreal and @CBCToronto offices. CBC’s enthusiasm is unparalleled: from workshops with a waitlist to a dedicated “Bee Channel.” Our friends at CBC Toronto say, "Our bee project with Alveole has blossomed into one of our key sustainability initiatives. In addition to improved local biodiversity, the project has enhanced employee engagement through bee workshops and honey sales. These honey sales allow us to donate all profits back to local food-based charities demonstrating our commitment to corporate social responsibility."

A post shared by Alvéole (@alveolebuzz) on Feb 7, 2018 at 7:36am PST

A creative twist from Sid Lee

At the Design Thinkers conference, we heard from Laura Stein, the Creative Director at Sid Lee. She explained that they have beehives on the rooftop of their Queen West Toronto office.

Besides producing honey, they wanted to do more to raise awareness for U.B and it's impact. That's how the comic book Paula & Nate started, telling the love story of Paula the bee and Nate the flower. Complete with custom packaging, a line of soap and custom merch, a brand was born!

Source Stimulantonline
Source Stimulantonline