Garfield Community Garden's Plan Bee

In 2022 our garden community started a bee colony with the hope of adding pollinators to our garden plots, learning about beekeeping as a community, and one day harvesting some sweet, sweet honey! Unfortunately, our colony did not survive it's first winter, which had an especially harsh cold snap early on.

Instead of giving up, we're doubling down! We want to raise funds to support TWO bee colonies. With more colonies we will have more opportunities for more of our garden community to participate and learn about beekeeping. And of course, we'll have MORE BEES!

We will need to purchase starters for two new colonies as well as additional frames and boxes for our hives.

We'll also need to purchase additional supplies and protective gear for our garden community.

As the hives grow, we'd like to paint the hives with the story of our garden and our garden community. Our garden has a rich 100+ year history that we can highlight. We also want to highlight the stories of our Nepali gardeners who have made their homes in West Park and in the Garfield Garden community.

We'd also like to expand the number of pollinator-friendly native plants in our garden. Native, pollinator-friendly plants will support our bee colony as well as the many wild bees that are important to our garden and our ecosystem.

A thriving bee colony will help us ensure a thriving garden community! In addition to the benefits pollinators provide, we hope our bee hives will be an opportunity for our garden community to work and learn together and build stronger connections between our gardeners.