As soon as somebody talks about beehives, I immediately think of bees in the forest or at least at the countryside. Until today, I never expected that you can also have beehives in the middle of a capital city. So I was pretty amazed when I got invited to attend a blogger event in Kirchberg to visit some beehives.

Hugo Zeler is the apiarist of the beehives in Luxembourg City. They are located in Kirchberg, Bonnevoie and Limpertsberg and soon also at the Cloche d’Or. If you want to get some information about him and his bees, have a look at the Hunnegkescht.

Miel de Quatier

The event was organised by the Sofitel Luxembourg Europe in cooperation with Kachen, a luxembourgish cook magazine and obviously Hugo Zeler, the apiarist. You may be surprised but the beehives are located at the rooftop of the hotel, which makes it really special. The hotel has organized a nice tent with amazing pastries to try. They were all made with honey from the bees of Hugo Zeler. They were very delicious.

First, the Managing Director of the Sofitel gave us some information about bees in general. As you may know, bees are essential to human life. Without bees, there is no life. Each year almost 30% of the the bees population dies, which is a real tragedy. So we have to protect those amazing animals and make sure that they have flowers and places to nest. Urban bees are getting more and more popular and I really like the idea of having more useful bees in the city. Therefore people like the idea of having a regional product.

Afterwards, we got divided in two groups. One could have an amazing breakfast with all the delicious pastries and honey, the other group went with Hugo Zeler. The buffet with the pastries looked so amazing that nobody really wanted to eat it. So after all the pictures were taken, we finally tried the food and it was so delicious. You can make so much with honey!

Then it was the turn of our group to be with the apiarist. He explained how the whole process of honey making works. He showed us how the honey comes from the comb to the glas. The honeycomb of the beehive is centrifuged that the honey comes out of it. Afterwards, the honey is filtered and filled up in glasses. With the rest of the comb, the apiarist can produce wax candles. It is really amazing how this whole process works.

Every beehive has its own queen, which is marked with a white point with a number on it. She lives for approximately 4 years and then the beehive has to get a new one. Beside the queen, there are also bee workers, which are the females. The males, which are called drones because they are supposed to defend the beehive.

Finally, we could join Hugo Zeler to the beehives. For this, we had to put on a special apiarist suit to protect us from the bees. The apiarist took a special smoke with him to calm the bees. Once arrived at the beehives, he opened one and took a honeycomb out to show us the bees and their nests. One bee went on the hand of the apiarist because his hand had apparently something sweet on it. His beehive was not aggressive at all. They were really calm and flew around us.

All in one, it was an amazing experience to discover the world of an apiarist with its bees. I am very happe that I could have attend this event and learn all about the process of making honey. If you are interested in buying the honey, you can do this at Les paniers de Sandrine in Munsbach and from autumn on, Hugo Zeler will sell it also online.