Honeybees are here! Photo by Perry A. Price.
This spring, HCCC added around 10,000 new staff, give or take a hundred, but you will probably never notice them. They are working in our Craft Garden and likely will put in a few extra hours across the Museum District. They are honeybees, whose hive was recently installed on the roof of the Center.
Honeybees are pollinators, a key fixture of our ecology. Beyond pollinating Houston’s gardens and landscaping, they are essential to a number of agricultural crops. The bees are managed by a beekeeper from the local Bee2Bee Honey Collective and support the many flowering plants featured in the Center’s Craft Garden, gathering nectar and pollen for the production of honey. Once established, our bees should produce enough honey to share with you; although the product of hundreds of thousands of bees can’t be called “handmade,” it will certainly be both local and uniquely crafted.
The honeybees are the newest addition to the interpretation of the Craft Garden, a unique resource in the urban center of Houston. A variety of native and regional plants share the space with plants that are used in any number of craft traditions, from fibers used in weaving, basket making, or handmade paper to natural dyes. On your next visit to HCCC, take a moment to enjoy and learn about the remarkable flora—all managed by our dedicated group of volunteers. The climate-controlled galleries will be here for you to cool off when you need them! And, though you may never see our new bees, we will all benefit from their industriousness.
–Perry Allen Price
HCCC Executive Director
