The Notre Dame beehives remain intact, the billionaires can keep their donations
The beehives and resultant 200,000 bees on the roof of Notre Dame cathedral survived a fire that gutted the rest of the building and felled its iconic spire.
On Monday evening a blaze, likely caused by an electrical fault, ripped through the Parisian landmark and came within 15 – 30 minutes of razing it to the ground.
The bees living on Notre Dame's roof survived the fire 🐝https://t.co/7rPCk10sav pic.twitter.com/iFNja5TFxB
— CNN International (@cnni) April 19, 2019
The fire prompted a wave of donations from French elites, raising some €600 million. The Catholic Church’s urgent request for renovation amounted to €6 million before the fire.
Priceless works of art and relics were recovered from Notre Dame before they were consumed by the flames, and the beehives on the roof of an adjacent sacristry miraculously survived despite remaining in situ.
This picture shows the bees were outside the burn zone at Notre Dame Cathedral -we hope they survived the heat and ashy air! #bees #beekeeping #NotreDameFire #NotreDameCathedral #NotreDame pic.twitter.com/RF3uSjQS2b
— BBKA (@britishbee) April 17, 2019
Beekeeper Nicolas Geant said: “The bees are alive. Until this morning, I had had no news.
“At first I thought that the three hives had burned but I had no information.
“Then I saw from satellite images that this was not the case and then the cathedral spokesman told me that they were going in and out of the hives.”
