The new apian residents of the Tampere Hall rooftop garden support our principles of responsibility

On the 18th of May, two queen bees, with 10,000 worker bees each, moved in to the Tampere Hall rooftop garden. The goal is for up to 100 kilos of honey to be collected from the rooftop garden beehives in August, for the use of the Tampere Hall restaurants as well as for sale to the visitors of the hall. Local production of raw materials is important to Tampere Hall, and the bees support the Hall’s thinking on environmental responsibility. The diverse harvest of the rooftop garden is used in its entirety in the Hall’s restaurants, such as Tuhto. Tampere Hall’s other environmentally responsible solutions include its own solar power plant, air-cleaning bitumen roofs, the restaurant’s heat recovery system, and ozonated water, which has replaced chemical cleaning agents at the Hall. Tampere Hall was the first conference centre in the Nordic countries to receive the Nordic Ecolabel, in 2014. Beekeeper Teemu Aittamaa chose two of the tamest bee colonies he knows for Tampere Hall. The bees will not trouble the people in the vicinity of Tampere Hall. Bees can sting, but only when they feel that their hive is threatened. The beehives are situated on the roof in a sheltered, sunny spot. ‘Bees are very unselfish and work purely for the good of the colony and hive. Bees gather in a 2-3 kilometre radius, so this is a great place for a hive’, says beekeeper Teemu Aittamaa from Korpikuusikon Hunaja. Aittamaa visits the bees weekly to check that the queens are in their hives and that the size of the hive is sufficient for the colony. The first crop of honey can hopefully be harvested in June. The main harvest will take place in August, when free greenhouse tours open to the public will also be arranged.