Give your Montreal buildings an engagement program tenants talk about.
Why urban beeking works for Montreal buildings
Montreal is one of Canada's best-suited cities for urban beekeeping. A 2024 Concordia study mapped nearly a third of the island as highly suitable, thanks to parks, tree canopy, and corridors like Mount Royal and the Lachine Canal. Hives here have real forage within range.
Local policy backs it too. Montreal banned neonicotinoid pesticides in 2015, then broadened the ban in 2021 to 36 ingredients. And Quebec's Fonds Écoleader offers non-repayable funding for businesses taking on biodiversity initiatives, which can help offset the cost.
How an urban beekeeping program works in Montreal
A living amenity tenants actually use
Year-round events
Participation data that compounds
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Meet the neighborhood bees
From the Golden Square Mile to the Mile End, bees have moved into some of the city's most iconic addresses. Place Ville-Marie, the Ritz-Carlton, Palais des congrès, Maison Manuvie, Tour Deloitte, Ubisoft, and Google all run rooftop hives with Alvéole. Ten landmark buildings, one program.
Turning your hives into insight
Data collection and instant reporting
Remote sensing establishes baseline indicators across your portfolio, while onsite monitoring (bioacoustics and eDNA) captures species presence and habitat quality at each property. That data feeds directly into TNFD, CSRD, and GRESB reports, generated in minutes from pre-filled templates, with audit trails showing exactly where each number comes from.
Portfolio dashboard and AI agent
See biodiversity trends across all assets, benchmark each property against portfolio average, and export site-level data for individual disclosures. Ask the AI agent questions about TNFD requirements, GRESB scoring, or site-specific risks, and get answers that reference your actual portfolio data and current framework standards.
We service hives across Montreal and the Greater Montreal area, including the following municipalities in Quebec:
and more...
Alvéole in the media
FAQ
Yes. The Ville de Montréal does not prohibit it citywide, though some of the city's 19 boroughs apply added local rules. Every hive must be registered annually with MAPAQ, Quebec's agriculture ministry. Alvéole handles registration and siting for every install, to meet provincial setback rules.
Montreal's honeybee population grew fast over the last decade, and Con research has flagged pressure on the region's 150+ native wild bee species as a result. Alvéole sites hives based on local forage density rather than adding to already-saturated blocks, and pairs each honeybee hive with wild bee habitat (BeeHome) to support native pollinators too, not just honeybees.
The active season runs roughly May through August, driven by the city's climate and bloom cycle. That's also when most tenant-facing events land, hive tours, harvest days, workshops, so the program's busiest stretch lines up with the season buildings actually want tenant programming.
Yes. Alvéole keeps Italian honey bees, a breed known for its docility, and honey bees are not aggressive away from the hive, rarely stinging unless it's disturbed. Alvéole's beekeepers site hives away from high-traffic rooftop areas and manage all hive access, so tenants interact with the program through workshops and events, not the hive directly.
Yes. Alvéole's program contributes to BOMA 360, BOMA BEST, BREEAM, Fitwel, GRESB, LEED, and WELL, through pollinator habitat, tenant engagement documentation, and biodiversity monitoring.
They stay in the hive. Honey bees don't hibernate or migrate. As temperatures drop, the colony clusters tightly around the queen and vibrates to generate heat, living off the honey it stored through summer. Before the cold sets in, Alvéole winterizes each hive, reducing the entrance, adding insulation, and confirming the colony has enough stores to reach spring. Tenant programming keeps running through winter with indoor workshops, and hands-on beehive visits pick back up in spring once the colony is active again.
