Rooftop Garden Hotel: Stunning Views &Fresh Produce

Arrival 15

Departure 16

Bees & Kitchen Garden

St. Ermin’s’ roofs are literally alive with activity, bees producing honey and a kitchen garden providing fresh produce.

The third floor roof is home to our 350,000+ good-tempered bees, which can be viewed safely from behind glass. Meanwhile on the rooftop, our kitchen garden, is packed with delicious fruit and vegetables, which like the honey, find their way to our kitchens. The garden not only provides fresh produce for our kitchens but also serves as a break-out space for our kitchen team and bees, who all enjoy to forage daily.

Our Bees

Guests can take a trip to the third floor and watch the hotel’s good-tempered 350,000 bees safely from behind glass, and see these industrious insects go about their daily business – making honey.

Our bees have fantastic access to some of London’s major parks, all within a three-mile radius, where they collect a wide variety of pollen and nectar, giving their honey a truly delicious taste. Cities like London trap heat, meaning these bees can start foraging earlier than rural bees and continue later into autumn.

For the bees that do not live in the hives, there is the ‘Bee and Bee Hotel’. These special hexagonal suites offer a wide variety of bees a comfortable home; bamboo nesting areas and condominiums are for solitary bees such as leaf cutter bees, whereas the boxes are more suited to social varieties like the tree bumblebee. Following the hotel’s ethos that everyone is welcome, the ‘Bee and Bee Hotel’ is also home to helpful insects such as lacewings, ladybirds, earwigs, woodlice and spiders that can rest in peace amongst the crevice stacks.

Our Kitchen Garden

Our rooftop has been transformed into a fertile space, where tomatoes, squash, pumpkin, spring onions, French beans, potatoes, olives, clementines, apples, plums, raspberries and blackberries are being cultivated in specially designed beds and pots. Alongside this abundance of fresh produce, there is an extensive herb garden and a greenhouse.

Beekeeping Taster Experiences

Our bees are looked after by 'The London Beekeeper' who have helped us organise a number of beekeeping events this Summer. Led by Beekeeper, actress and half of the popular ‘Queen Bees’ podcast duo - Esther Coles, these events will provide an insight into beekeeping combined with a food and drink element.

Choose from a number of beekeeping experiences, ranging from a ‘Meet the Bees’ encounter out on the third-floor bee terrace, to a kid’s ‘Let’s Waggle’ workshop and bee hotel making; ‘Products of the Hive’ class with candle and cocktail making and even a ‘Bee Friendly Planting’ session to coincide with the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

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