Thursday 30 April saw a considerable increase in staff numbers at Tivoli thanks to Bybi, which dropped off 10 bee hives early in the morning. The hives are placed on top of the Tivoli Concert Hall. Right now each of the 10 hives is home to around 30,000 bees, and this number is expected to double over the course of the summer. Bybi is responsible for tending to the bees and harvesting the honey. They will drop by every week throughout the summer to ensure that the bees and queen are thriving. Bybi expects to harvest the honey in June, July and at the start of September.
Oliver Maxwell, Bybi’s Director, says:
“We believe that honey is something we make together, and we are thrilled that organisations like Tivoli are contributing to making the whole of Copenhagen more colourful and lusher for the environment but also for people; everybody can help the bees by planting more flowers.”
Hard-working, sustainable and peaceful
Each bee hive or family pollinates over 4 million flowers in the course of a summer. That means the Tivoli bees will stop by a total of 40 million flowers in total. Honey is harvested from the bee hives three times during the summer, and each family produces around 45 kg of honey during the season. Bees cover 80,000 km on average in order to produce 1 kg of honey. As well as delicious honey, Tivoli also harvests another benefit from the project: supporting Copenhagen as a sustainable city as part of the #BeeSustain campaign.
Tivoli was inspired to keep bees during production of the drawings for Tivoli Centre, the talent school in Tietgensgade, where the plan was to keep bees on the roof. Bees are peaceful insects who are only interested in flowers, and they only sting when they feel threatened. They are often confused with wasps, which are aggressive and are attracted by our food.
Tivoli honey for breakfast
Once the honey is ready for consumption, visitors to the Nimb Hotel and Nimb Brasserie will be able to enjoy the hard work of our many new employees at the breakfast table. Jars of Tivoli honey from Bybi will also be available for purchase.
About Bybi
Set up in 2010, Bybi now has 20 sites across the whole of Copenhagen and works in partnership with many of the city’s businesses and social projects. Inspired by the work of the bees, Bybi works to create a honey industry that makes use of Copenhagen while creating new opportunities for the homeless, asylum seekers and the long-term unemployed.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc0iGuvmLo0&feature=youtu.be
Read more at http://bybi.dk/?lang=en.