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Take a few steps outside our corporate headquarters in Chicago, and you’ll be greeted by a community garden teeming with pumpkins, tomatoes and more than 45,000 new Crate and Barrel team members.
Wait, 45,000 newbies?! Indeed—in the form of honeybees, part of our new urban hive.
We recently partnered with Alvéole to help grow the declining bee population in our area. Alvéole installs and cares for beehives at businesses and schools in the United States and Canada, giving communities the chance to learn about the environment in an experiential way. Bonus: At the end of the season, the bees produce some seriously delectable honey.
We sat down with Travis Sherlin, our beekeeper, to get the buzz about urban beekeeping.
Honeybees help pollinate one-third of the crops that we rely on for food. They also support a healthy ecosystem up to three miles from their home base. Bees do really well in an urban environment because they have access to more varied biodiversity. They’re exposed to all kinds of plants that are grown with fewer pesticides.
There's only one queen bee in the entire hive, and she’s the only one that lays eggs so we like to check on her every time we visit the hives. The hive population is maintained by the queen, and she can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day.
Honeybees aren’t interested in humans. Their daily quest is to bring pollen and nectar to their colony. They have a friendly disposition, and they’ll only sting in defense if provoked. Also, honeybees are able to sting only once before they die, so they don’t want to use it unless absolutely necessary. The bees in our hives happen to be an especially docile Italian breed.
The flavor of each batch of honey is dependent on which flowers the bees pollinate. They love our linden flowers, clover and other wildflowers.
For more information about urban beekeeping, visit Alvéole.
