Thought you got a sweet bargain on your last hotel getaway?
One midtown hotel is getting a ton of buzz for welcoming a few thousand new guests free of charge, and with no check-out date in sight.
The patrons work 24 hours a day and stay in the tiniest rooms offered, located on the roof. But they're not complaining.
Why? Because these new guests are honeybees.
The New York Hilton Midtown just checked in some 450,000 honeybees, housed in six beehives, onto its fifth-floor roof.
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Last to arrive were six queen bees, who certainly got the royal treatment: escorted by their attendant bees, the queens were driven in a vintage checkered taxi and assisted down a red carpet to their new home.
But these patrons are no free-loaders: they're working hard to earn their keep. They'll spend their days making honey for the hotel's chefs to use in food preparation. These industrious workers are expected to produce more than 300 pounds of the sweet substance each year.
Beekeeping became legal in NYC in 2010 and has since taken off in a big way. There were 402 apiaries (i.e. beehives) in the city last year, and have increased 35 percent since then.
All in all, this Hilton's got themselves a pretty sweet deal!
[Feature Image Courtesy Instagram] [via TimeOut NY]