Bees and France have a long history together. In the 1800s, Napoleon Bonaparte chose the bee as a symbol of France. In the same century, in 1865, the beekeeping school of Luxembourg Gardens in Paris was started. At that time there were around 2,000 beehives in the city. After that the numbers went down for some time, but beekeeping has become popular again recently. Now there are over 700 hives in Paris. Some of these hives are actually on the roofs of famous Parisian buildings such as Notre Dame, the Opéra Garnier, and the Grand Palais. Others are kept on the roofs of famous hotels and restaurants such as the Mandarin-Oriental. Down below in the kitchens, chefs use the unique honey to make tasty desserts. The most amazing part of the bees and their honey is not even where they live. It is the amount, the quality, and the flavor of the honey. First, city bees make three to five times more honey than country bees. This may be because there are no pesticides in the parks and gardens in Paris. Rural French beekeepers lose up to 40 percent of their hives each year because of disease, pesticides, and other causes. However, urban beekeepers lose less than five percent. "That's interesting," you might be thinking, "but isn't there a lot of pollution in Paris?" In fact, the pollution does not seem to affect the honey. Parisian honey was tested for 30 kinds of pollution, and none was found. As for the taste, Parisian bees have many different kinds of flowers and exotic plants to choose from. In the countryside, however, there is usually only one type of plant. The flowers in Paris give the honey a special taste like cherry or bubblegum. Although the honey is popular, it is quite expensive. Beekeepers in Paris face some small problems. For instance, if there are too many hives in one area, the bees might not have enough food. Therefore, beekeepers must work together and spread out their hives. Another problem is bees in restaurants. One beekeeper had to remove his hives from the roof of a restaurant after his bees started drinking from the flower vases. However, most problems can be avoided if beekeepers are responsible.