Praise bee….recognising a year of hard labour, the St Ermin’s Hotel in St James’s Park, London is celebrating the first full harvest from its 200,000 rooftop Buckfast Bees with September Honey month.

Working with environmental charity SUSTAIN, the hotel will be hosting a series of bee-related activities during Urban Eats Week (9 -16 September inclusive, www.sustainweb.org). Throughout the month guests will also be able to try Chef Hus Vedat’s specially designed Caxton Grill lunch/ dinner menu, sip honey infused cocktails such as The Bowler Hat at the hotel’s Caxton Bar or settle into the library for a honey-themed afternoon tea, each one delivering a £2 donation to the British Beekeepers Association, www.bbka.org.uk.

St Ermin’s Buckfast bees are good tempered honey bees that are happily living in six custom-built hives. Three of the hives are on the roof and the other three are safely viewable to guests on the third floor. They have fantastic access to some of London’s most prestigious gardens including Buckingham Palace and St James’s Park and so can gather a wide variety of pollen and nectar within their three-miles flight radius and produce a truly delicious tasting honey.

“Urban bee keeping is starting to become popular and we are delighted to be leading the hotel bee keeping trend in London, It was originally the idea of our property manager, Colin Farquharson, who is a keen apiarist and has now enthused us all – and many guests too – about the benefits of bees and bee keeping. London is actually a very good home for bees; aside from all the green spaces on our doorstep, cities tend to trap heat and so bees can start foraging earlier in the year than rural bees and continue later into the Autumn”, commented General Manager, Douglas McHugh.

‘And Is There Honey Still For Tea?’
Served in the Library or Caxton Terrace, St Ermin’s Honey Afternoon Tea includes honey and caramel mousse with crunchy honeycomb topping; honey bakewell tart; scones with strawberry jam, clotted cream and honey; lemon and honey polenta cake; goats cheese and honey mille feuille plus selection of finger sandwiches for £29.00 pp, which includes a donation of £2 to the British Beekeepers Association and a 1.5oz of St Ermin’s honey to take home.

Caxton Grill
In addition to regular items the Caxton Grill will also be serving a set three-course St Ermin’s honey menu at £25.00 per head for lunch or dinner: honey glazed fig, Bosworth Ash goats’ cheese and shaved fennel (V), followed by honey roasted squash with baby beetroot (V) and finished with honey pannacotta, cox & calvados compote, rice crisp. www.caxtongrill.co.uk