Here's the buzz: Bees find new home in Wilmington park, 120,000 of them
Tucked inside a forest clearing in Wilmington’s Halyburton Park, roughly 120,000 honeybees have found a new home.
The bees recently took up residence in the two hives that make up the public park’s new apiary – the technical term for a bee garden. Opening a public apiary has been a goal of the New Hanover County Beekeepers Association for more than a decade, said association president Susan Warwick.
“We have been wanting to have bees in a public location for upwards of 10 to 12 years now,” she said. “And we're super excited to see that become a reality.”
The apiary, which held a ribbon cutting this week, is the first of its kind in the area, Warwick said. The project came to fruition through a partnership between the beekeepers and the city of Wilmington, which owns and manages Halyburton Park.
Many of the bees living in the apiary were relocated from the branch of a dead tree that was taken down this summer by the city of Wilmington, said Andrea Dillon, treasurer of the New Hanover County Beekeepers Association.
The apiary is made up of two hive boxes. Each box is home to approximately 60,000 bees and is decorated with designs from local artists that feature venus flytraps, goldenrod, blackberries and other flowering plants the bees help pollinate.
The club, which meets monthly and has upwards of 100 members, saw the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to finally build an apiary in a public space, Warwick said. They began to put out “feelers” to gauge their options. The city of Wilmington and Andy Fairbanks, Halyburton Park’s recreation supervisor, were open to the idea and helped develop a memorandum of understanding between the group and the city.
After getting the all clear, the beekeepers turned their attention to building a home for the bees. They ended up finding two Boy Scouts who volunteered to help build the apiary for their Eagle Scout projects.
Over the course of several weeks this summer, Ryan Sproull built the fence-like enclosure that encircles the apiary and Oliver Anguish constructed the stand that supports the hives and the “queen’s castle,” a box containing three hives with resources that can support the larger hives when they need it, Anguish said.
“It's essentially three little beehives that have like their own queens and everything,” he said.
Warwick, who has served as association president for two years, said bringing bees into a public space was on the group’s “bucket list” because they see a public apiary as a way to educate the public about bees and the important role they play as pollinators.
“That’s one thing that we, as a club, want to share with our community,” Warwick said. “(People) know bees sting and they know bees make honey, but that’s probably about the extent of the knowledge that most people have.”
Warwick said she hopes allowing people to learn about and observe bees in Halyburton Park will allow them to appreciate the insects and make bee-conscious choices when deciding to use pesticides or spraying for mosquitos.
“If we can get people excited about it, then maybe they too will take better care of the bees,” she said.
Reporter Emma Dill can be reached at 910-343-2096 or edill@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Wilmington bees find home in Halyburton Park's new hives
