Building bugs

Insects are unwelcome guests in hotels. One along Ashram Road in Ahmedabad, India caused the closure of its kitchen in April.

The closure stemmed from the complaint of a diner at the restaurant of Fairfield by Marriott Hotel in Usmanpura. The diner allegedly found an insect in the soup served by the hotel’s restaurant on 31 March, The Times of India reported.

The health department of Ahmedabad inspected the restaurant and found that it had no mandatory documents on pest control and medical fitness certificate of workers, prompting sanitary inspectors to close the kitchen.

In contrast, insects comfortably live at the rooftop of a hotel adjacent to the JR Kyoto train station in Kyoto, Japan.

Its population of 15,000 in 2021 has grown to between 50,000 and 60,000 today, according to Asahi Shimbun (AS). But that is no reason to be alarmed.

Several hotel employees even tend to the bugs during their breaks, AS reported. The Thousand Kyoto Hotel in the city’s Shimogyo Ward also earns from the honey produced by the bees. The hotel sells the honey in jars and serves it at its restaurants and cafe, AS said.

The bees produced 44 kilograms of honey in the first year and nearly tripled production to 120 kilos last year. They get their nectar from cherries, plums and white clovers in the Higashiyama district and areas along the Kamogawa river, beekeeper leader Marina Wada, 26, told AS.