The roof garden terrace on the Hilton London Bankside.
Photographer: Hollie Adams/BloombergThat Buzz on City Rooftops? Beekeeping Is Going Corporate
Urban hives are helping companies burnish their green credentials, but there are only so many city flowers to go around.
Honeybees, under threat in rural and agricultural areas, are finding an unlikely refuge: the big city.
The fuzzy pollinators, apis mellifera, have found new homes at places like the Beaugrenelle Commercial Center, one of Paris’s biggest indoor shopping complexes. Not far from the Eiffel Tower, the mall hosts a pesticide-free garden on its rooftop with Russian mint, Australian lemongrass, Indian holy basil and other plantings that attract local Michelin-starred chefs. The aromatic flowers and herbs also draw legions of bees that now live on a cleared corner of the roof overlooking the Seine River.