14 DAY TRIAL // Last year, a few Googlers set up the Hiveplex, Google's own beehive complex at the company's main headquarters which is dubbed, well, the Googleplex. You can probably spot the resemblance.
Google has plenty of activities like this set up for its employees and the Hiveplex has proven quite popular last year and even more so this year.
It seems that Googlers really like the beekeeping trade. What's more, all of their work, the bees' and the Googlers', is not for nothing, the honey they collected will be used in the company's rather famous cafeterias.
"The second year at the Google Hiveplex was a busy one, and two weeks ago, we harvested a delicious bounty from our wildly productive hives," Jessica Vaughan, with Google Grants, wrote.
"But the sweetest part about having the four hives on campus is the Googlers from all departments who have gotten into beekeeping or become more aware of honeybees because of their presence on campus," she said.
Google's Hiveplex consists of four, five-story hives which may not sound like much but is enough for quite a lot of honey. The Google Beekeepers estimated that the Hiveplex produced about 400 lbs, 181 Kg of honey last year.
This year, the yield was even larger. Of course, the bees, who did most of the work anyway, got to keep more than that to feed them through the winter. Everyone involved got to take home their own jar of Google-branded honey for their efforts.
All of this may seem like a distraction at Google, but the company has always put a big emphasis on green business and sustainable development. It buys as much food as possible from local sources and even uses a herd of goats to "mow" the tall grass that grows around the Googleplex.
