All the Foodie “Buzz” on Sofitel’s Spring Garden!
I’ve heard of dedicated locavores, but this is an impressive commitment to the movement. Hotel Sofitel, at 17th and Sansom, unveiled its springtime rooftop garden yesterday to an assembled group of media and onlookers. This is Sofitel’s third consecutive year of cultivating a seasonal garden, which produces herbs and vegetables for the hotel’s restaurant, but this year there is an exciting new addition to the mix – bees! (Obligatory: BEES!)
It’s going to “bee” a great – and delicious! – springtime at the Sofitel Hotel, where yesterday ambassadors for the rooftop garden met with the press to unveil their new apiary.
Sofitel’s rooftop apiary consists of two hives, which contain 100,000 bees between them. Justin Perdue, the Sofitel’s head chef, plans on using the estimated 500 gallons of honey that the hives will produce this year for his signature Honey Bee cocktails. Experts say that, because of the needs and habits of bees, a high roof is an ideal spot for hives. Not only is the lofty perch well removed from the noise and activity at street-level, but the bees will have plenty of flying room – they travel as far as a mile and a half away in the course of their daily activities.
All the edibles grown on the rooftop garden will be organic, since no fertilizers or pesticides will be used. Squash, zucchini, tomatoes, lavender, basil, and mint are just some of the plants that will be grown on Sofitel’s roof and then ferried down an elevator to the kitchen just a few levels below. In terms of boosting Center City’s local produce scene, this is pretty epic.
The announcement about the bees, and the media unveiling of the 2014 garden, were timed for yesterday in celebration of Earth Day. I’ll say this: honeybees are way cooler than run-of-the-mill tree hugging.
(By the way, I want you to know that the title of this post was the least of the many pun-related evils I was contemplating. I also didn’t stoop to “bees-iness,” a la CBS, so feel free to be grateful for that as well!)
