Let their BEE honey!
Shift2Green spearheads urban beekeeping program at the The Historic Methodist Campground. HMC is now home to five new bee hives, serving a vital role in the support of plant survival, which depend on pollination.
Honey bees account for 80% of all pollination done by insects, so without honey bee's, more than a third of the fruits and vegetables that humans consume would be lost. In many areas, millions of colonies of wild (or feral) honey bees have been wiped out by urbanization, pesticides, and parasitic mites, devastating the wild honey bee population. When gardeners wonder why they now see fewer and fewer honey bees in their gardens, it's because of the dramatic decrease in our wild honey bee population.
Our proximity to the river and swamp area are ideal for pollinators, and we expect to have a thriving honey bee community. Beekeeping is vital in our efforts to reestablish lost colonies of bees and offset the natural decrease in pollination by wild bees. We're proud to be part of this worthwhile cause.
Stan Kotecki © Photo credits
In partnership with West Side Bee Boyz, additional hives will be introduced throughout the season along with workshops, after-school programs, and field trips, on how to raise and care for honey bees, and harvest their surplus honey. The surplus honey will be used to produce natural-based honey products on site to support West Side Bee Boyz and HMC's revitalization campaign.
Be sure to visit our fundraising portal at Shift2Green to support the camps revitalization campaign with products that are good for you and good for the planet!
West Side Bee Boyz provides reliable, knowledgeable, and sustainable resources for beekeeping, consulting services and beekeeping management as well as selling bees, beekeeping equipment, and urban raw honey at local farmer's markets.
They manage over 50 apiaries throughout Chicago using natural beekeeping methods by avoiding potentially harmful chemicals to strengthen local honey bee populations. Hives are located throughout Chicagoland, from Lincoln Park Zoo to the Shedd Aquarium, O'Hare Airport, downtown rooftops, and now Des Plaines. The City of Chicago has a long and accepted history of urban beekeeping.
