Manulife has news that’s got them buzzing with excitement.

The Toronto office unveiled a new apiary on its grounds on Monday, which contains two bee hives.

“We’ve got such a beautiful space here, and it seemed like a great opportunity to really bring sustainability and biodiversity to people,” said Mary Desjardins, the assistant vice president of philanthropy and sponsorship at Manulife.

She said the plans to bring the beehives to the Manulife campus near Bloor and Church Sts. have been in the works for several months, and the hives arrived last month.

The company also has eight hives in Montreal. Each hive has about 50,000 to 70,000 bees, so there are about 500,000 bees altogether at Manulife’s 10 hives, said Shabeen Hanifa, a spokesperson for the company.

Monday’s presentation included a tour of a bee hive by Blake Retter, the Toronto manager for Alvéole, a beekeeping company that specializes in urban hives.

Retter took apart the bee hive and showed several Manulife employees its different parts. Some frames already had chunks of honey formed on them, and the employees were allowed to dip their finger in it and taste it.

“The bees are travelling in a 5 kilometre radius out from this location, so this means that all of this nectar that’s in the honey, it’s almost like a snapshot of where you are in the city,” Retter said.

According to Retter, urban honey could have about 40 different types of flower nectar present, which gives it a unique taste. One hive can produce from 10 to 50 kilograms of honey, depending on various conditions.

The garden near the office is a great location for the hives, Retter said, because they are sheltered from wind and sun.

Derek Lelievre, the head horticulturalist on the grounds, said there are 18 or 19 different plants that attract bees, such as roses and black-eyed susans.

Retter thinks the honey yield will be good this year because it’s been a wet summer, which means all the plants nearby are lush.

Desjardins said the company hasn’t decided what to do with their honey at the end of the summer, but one idea is to use it in recipes served in their food court.

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She said they might consider bringing in more bee hives to Toronto, because the bees seem happy there and the hives are easy to manage.

“Thanks to organizations like Alvéole, it’s now very accessible to bring bee hives in, they come in and service the hives every two weeks, they take care of the maintenance, and Derek and his team take care of planting the plants that attract the pollinators,” said Desjardins. “It creates a reciprocal partnership between the bees and the plants.”