Complications soon arose: there wasn’t enough space on The Montague’s roof to accommodate the beehives. It wasn’t long before Bloomsbury’s The Montague on the Gardens looked into setting up its own resident hives. The astounding success of The Chesterfield’s honeybee hotels did not go unnoticed. The resulting honey is as rich as it is deep in flavour, and guests staying at The Chesterfield enjoy it every morning at Butlers Restaurant. Once a year, the bees’ honey is humanely and sustainably harvested, yielding an average of 160 pounds. Given the extensive bouquets of these royal gardens, The Chesterfield’s bees have access to an extraordinarily complex palette, from hydrangea and hyacinth, lilac to lavender. Their unique, London brand of honey is perfumed with blooms from Buckingham Palace, St. Constituting four hives, The Chesterfield’s bees number in the hundreds of thousands. The first in the Red Carnation Hotels suite of honeybee hotels were the apiaries atop The Chesterfield Mayfair. With even more hives on the way at Summer Lodge Country House Hotel & Restaurant, the partnership between Red Carnation Hotels and the honeybee is only just getting started. Guests staying at The Chesterfield Mayfair, The Montague on the Gardens and The Oyster Box can tour these hives and sample the intricate flavours of their honey. That’s why, at Red Carnation Hotels, we’ve established resident apiaries, or honeybee hotels, at three of our properties, responsibly managed and conscientiously harvested. And while populations remain more stable in the UK, our bees are by no means immune to poor hive management, chemical pesticides and climate change. Last winter, almost 40 per cent of managed colonies in the US alone were lost. Since the 1990s, honey gatherers have noticed a steady and rapid decline in the number of honeybees. Yet, this sophisticated insect’s livelihood hangs in the balance, and human malpractice is to blame. Patrick’s Day food traditions do you enjoy? Share in the comments.It could be said that bees are singlehandedly responsible for our breakfast staples: they are not only crucial to the world’s agriculture but are also the artisans behind the unctuous spreadable we know and love as honey. You will also enjoy: High-Rise Buttermilk Biscuits and Irish Brown Soda Bread What St. Let it cool a bit before you slice and slather it with good Irish butter. Soda bread will keep for a couple of days, but tastes best fresh on the first day, preferably warm out of the oven. After you have formed the ball of dough, slice lines across, then across again to form a deep “x.”
This Irish soda bread is my absolute favorite. Its leavening comes from baking soda and buttermilk, resulting in a crusty, tender risen loaf that is still satisfyingly dense, yet not at all heavy. But in truth, this bread should be baked all year ’round. Most people make Irish soda bread with raisins around St. A lovely buttermilk bread dotted with raisins.