THE BUZZ ABOUT THE BEES
In an effort to increase the sustainability at Summerlakes Park, the Warrenville Park District is installing 2 honey bee hives in May 2023. The beehives will be regularly inspected to ensure they are healthy, mite free and the queen bee is laying eggs. We look forward to offering innovative programming about honey bees in the near future. Please see below to learn about honey bees and your safety.
The Place to BEE Location at Summerlakes Park:
bee safe
- Please do not approach the hives for your safety and the bee’s safety.
- Please do not swat, taunt or aggravate the bees on the property.
- The hive is in an open field. It is not part of the travel area for visitors or an interpretive area.
bee educated
- Honey bees feed on nectar and pollen. They are not interested in your food or drinks.
- These social and hardworking insects produce six hive products – honey, pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, and venom – all collected and used by people for various nutritional and medicinal purposes.
- The greatest importance of honey bees to agriculture isn’t a product of the hive. It’s their work as crop pollinators. This agricultural benefit of honey bees is estimated to be between 10 and 20 times the total value of honey and beeswax.
- Their sense of smell is so precise that it could differentiate hundreds of different floral varieties and tell whether a flower carried pollen or nectar from miles away.
- The honeybee’s wings stroke incredibly fast, about 200 beats per second, thus making their famous, distinctive buzz. A honeybee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as 15 miles per hour.
- A honeybee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip. The average worker bee produces about 1/12th teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
- Honeybees communicate with one another by dancing.
- During winter, honeybees feed on the honey they collected during the warmer months. They form a tight cluster in their hive to keep the queen and themselves warm.
warrenville park district core values: innovation, sustainability, inclusion and exceptional service
