Hey—we've moved. Visit
The Keyword
for all the latest news and stories from Google
Official Blog
Insights from Googlers into our products, technology, and the Google culture
Show me the honey
20 septembre 2010
Since we
installed four beehives
on campus this spring, the area around the hives has been, well, a hive of activity. Many Googlers took the beekeeping plunge, donning bee suits and diving into regular beekeeping activities such as regular checks for diseases and parasites. Today, we have more than 80 employees signed up to care for the bees. We’re happy to report that the bees have prospered at Google (must be all the free food) and the hives have grown from their
original one-story “campus,
” the Hiveplex, to
five stories
.
Over the past few weeks, there’s been a ton of anticipation on campus as the hives filled with honey and harvest time drew closer. Each beekeeping team is assigned to one of the four colored hives, and some teams were spotted peeking into other hives to see which was ahead in terms of honey production.
The actual harvest, last week, was a fun-filled event with both traditional and modern methods of honey extraction. Under the helpful guidance of Bill Tomaszewski of
Marin Bee Company
, Googlers took turns uncapping the honey (removing the protective wax that bees use to cover a cell once it’s filled with honey), hand-cranking the honey extraction machinery to spin the honey out of the honey comb and pouring the honey through filters to remove the bits of wax and other particles that came from the hive.
The end result was beyond any of our expectations—approximately 405lbs of raw, natural honey. (We were so eager to taste the harvest that we neglected to use the scales that had been set up!) We also determined it was more or less a dead heat for which hive was the most productive. Even with such a harvest, we made sure we left enough honey behind to allow the bees to get comfortably through the winter months.
The honey is being put to good use—everyone who participated in the extraction got a jar to take home, while the rest of the honey will be used in the cafes and for cooking classes organized by Marc Rasic, an executive chef at Google and one of the people behind the beekeeping initiative.
We’re also relieved that none of the hives have succumbed to Colony Collapse Disorder, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on them over the winter months to ensure that they stay happy, healthy and ready to start work again in the spring. We're already looking forward to next year!
Posted by Rob Peterson, Manager, Software Engineering
Libellés
Africa
19
Android
58
April 1
4
Asia
39
Europe
46
Latin America
18
accessibility
41
acquisition
26
ads
131
apps
419
books + book search
48
commerce
12
computing history
7
crisis response
33
culture
12
developers
120
diversity
35
doodles
68
education and research
144
entrepreneurs at Google
14
faster web
16
free expression
61
google.org
73
googleplus
50
googlers and culture
202
green
102
maps and earth
194
mobile
124
online safety
19
open source
19
photos
39
policy and issues
139
politics
71
privacy
66
recruiting and hiring
32
scholarships
31
search
505
search quality
24
search trends
118
security
36
small business
31
user experience and usability
41
youtube and video
140
Archive
2016
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2015
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2014
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2013
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2012
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2011
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2010
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2009
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2008
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2007
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2006
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2005
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
mars
févr.
janv.
2004
déc.
nov.
oct.
sept.
août
juil.
juin
mai
avr.
Feed
Google
on
Follow @google
Follow
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
Follow
