On Sunday, September 18th Pinelawn Memorial Park and Arboretum hosted its 4th Annual Honey Bee Experience to highlight the insect’s importance to Long Island’s ecosystem and to provide guests with the opportunity to have a safe, up-close look at the magnificence of these endangered insects. The event is part of Pinelawn Memorial Park and Arboretum’s ongoing commitment to providing Pinelawn families and community members impactful, educational experiences.
Over 350 community members and 62 Boy and Girl Scouts from 5 local troops gathered on the grounds throughout the day to participate in an in-depth Q&A with Master Beekeeper, Steve Chen to learn more about the honey bee and to enjoy a hands-on learning experience at the hives. Pinelawn provided educational activities such as honey bee arts and crafts, a “Find the Queen,” children’s activity where participants searched for the queen bee within the observation hive and fresh honey tasting straight from the bee hive frames.
“Honey Bees and other pollinators are in decline. With more and more honey bee species being added to the list of endangered species, it its becoming more necessary than ever to educate the public on how essential these insects are to the beauty of our grounds and to Long Island’s larger ecosystem,” said Fred Hoffmann, Grounds Supervisor at Pinelawn Memorial Park and Arboretum. “We hope all our Pinelawn families and local community members were able to take a moment to admire how beautiful the honey bee is while we shared our own knowledge of their role in our environment.”
Pinelawn’s Honey Bee Hive Program began in 2017 to support the honey bee population and promote pollination. Across Pinelawn’s six hives, they host over 500,000 honey bees that pollinate the grounds’ beautiful gardens as well as the surrounding landscape.
For more information on Pinelawn’s 2022 calendar of events, all free of charge and open to the public, click here.