City Center's Downtown Beehive Produces First Honey

by

The Bank of America Tower's urban beehive of 50,000 Italian bees has been busy all summer, collecting nectar from plants within three miles' radius of the downtown Fort Worth towers.

The bees, which populated their hive in May, have produced their first honey. Several City Center tenants volunteered to help harvest the honey as part of a workshop. It included "removing the wax caps that seal the honey inside, which was done by lightly scraping an uncapping fork over the caps to remove the beeswax," City Center said.

"Once both sides of the frames were scraped, they were slotted into a centrifugal spinner, which is a large stainless-steel drum that spun the frames at a high speed, flinging the honey out of the cells and onto the walls of the drum. The honey slid down the walls to the bottom of the drum where it was removed via a tap."

Dell Guy, City Center Security officer, tapped the first jar, City Center said. Two of the wooden frames produced enough honey to fill 30 jars. Each workshop participant earned a jar of honey.

"City Center’s hive will continue to produce honey throughout the summer," City Center said. "The hive should yield about 30 pounds of honey this year."

“Based on the types of flowers the bees forage on, the honey can look drastically different,” explained Alveolé Beekeeping Team Manager Michelle Winter, who tends to City Center’s hive. “The honey can be super dark or very light. It might taste minty or really sweet. Some of the blooms the bees forage on around here include dandelions, clover and similar wildflowers. While many people regard these plants as weeds, they are very important to the bee population and other pollinators like butterflies.”

“Our partnership with Alvéole has been very inspiring,” said Johnny Campbell, president and CEO of City Center Management. “We expect to harvest several hundred jars of honey from our hive this year. We’ll give some away to tenants and make some available for purchase for tenants or members of our community. We’re also giving some to the City Club Grill and 203 Café for them to use in a few signature dishes.”