A great deal of sense goes into the common phrase “snug as a bug in a rug.”  My Mom used to say this as she tucked me into bed as a child.  Her words were soothing and made me feel secure as I fell off into slumber for the night.  Last November, in my role as the head beekeeper for Toronto’s Fairmont Royal York hotel, I participated in the annual winter “tucking in” of the hotel’s rooftop bees.  Some may call bees bugs, but rest assured these urban bees don’t sleep in the hotel’s rugs.  Bees derive warmth from inside their  hive and their body temperature is maintained from the natural heat generated by their clustered colony.  Bees are further insulated by a beekeeper’s caring application of a “bee cozy.”  Here is what insulating a hive looked like, one sunny day last November 2012: 

On that day I  was joined by fellow beekeepers of the Toronto Beekeepers Coop. (The hotel’s apiary was established in partnership with the co-op and FoodShare Toronto).  He is a video of what our day of urban beekeeping looked like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhb4duxsBhI