Hamburg, 27 May 2022

Have you heard the buzzing on our roofs yet? - No? Then it' s time! Since 10 May 2022, things have been heating up on the roof of the third floor at a height of 18 metres, because our latest guests have moved into their new home.

When we talk about bees, the first thing most people think of is delicious honey. But the little animals have much more to offer than you might think. They pollinate flowers and trees for the benefit of the community, cover around 100,000 kilometres of flight for a jar of honey and communicate with each other using the bee dance. We owe them more than just our appreciation and should also support the great work they do. That's why we at the Empire Riverside Hotel have teamed up with the PLACE4BEES organisation to give 120,000 bees and two queens a new home.

PLACE4BEES is a Hamburg-based company that has been helping bees for years. In cooperation with beekeepers all over the country, they place bee colonies on rooftops in big cities, on pastures and meadows or at other locations, which they look at carefully beforehand and weigh up whether the bee colonies are given a suitable location here. PLACE4BEES sees their work as an opportunity to educate people, because bees are capable of much more than just producing honey. The colonies are visited weekly by experienced beekeepers and checked for health and safety. Of course, the honey is also collected by professionals. We are pleased to have started this project and hope to be able to bring this subject closer to you as well.

Even before our Empire bees moved in, there was a lot of excitement throughout the hotel. What will it be like when the bees arrive? How will you, our guests, accept our little friends? - But we can reassure you, we too went into the move-in with a great deal of respect and are incredibly surprised at how calm and tame our bees are. Our bees are from the Buckfast bee breed. They are animals that are not at all bothered by humans and are therefore particularly suited to being settled near people and we have noticed this. We completely lost our inhibitions and were able to take close-up pictures without any problems. Even our queens beamed for us into the camera.

During the lifetime of our founder Willi Bartels, he was already known by the nickname King of the Reeperbahn, and now the tradition of the house is carried on by two queens.

But enough bragging, you are welcome to marvel at the bees yourself directly from the comfort of your room during your next overnight stay or maybe you will be lucky and run across our in-house honey during your stay.

The team of the Empire Riverside Hotel