Superior West End honey from Fortnum’s
Think of honey bees and you might think of flowery English meadows, rose gardens, Kentish orchards … and you probably wouldn’t think of central . But Fortnum & Mason, provider of groceries to the gentry, now has its own beehives on the roof.
Fortnums - without sight of the bees, which live on the roof
The lucky bees are off to plunder windowboxes, rooftop gardens, and flowers in the royal parks. And they live in beautiful hives, neo-classical constructions painted in the Fortnums colours of turquoisey-green and gold. (Ah, looking it up, I find the proper description of that turquoisey-green colour is eau de nil. Sophisticated little bees, obviously.)
The honey should be super tasty – not just because it costs £10 a jar. Country bees have rather a monotonous diet; city bees, on the other hand, a bit like city dwelling humans, get a marvellous variety of tastes and flavours.From subtropical garden plants to the more traditional lavender and bergamot, they have a huge diversity of food to draw on.
I used to buy Walthamstow honey from the allotments. It beat hands down anything you could get in the shops. So I’ll be interested to see just how good the Fortnums honey is. There’s an awful lot of marketing in this – bees don’t really care about the architecture of their hives, or what colour they are painted, after all – but the honey might actually be something rather special.
Photo by Martin Belam on
