The Buzz About Bees

What Cheer Flower Farm and Little Rhody Beekeeping team up for tours and classes

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Flowers and bees are nature’s dynamic duo. While flowers provide nectar that bees need for honey, bees transfer pollen between flowers for pollination. It’s this pairing that inspired Anne Holland of What Cheer Flower Farm (WCFF) and Cindy Holt of Little Rhody Beekeeping (LRB) to team up and incorporate education into each
other’s programming.

To Cindy, educating people about the importance of pollinators and insects is something she feels is very important for Providence. “There are an estimated 150+ species of bees in addition to honey bees in this area that could use a hand,” she emphasizes.

Shelby Daggett, co-founder and program director of WCFF (a nonprofit flower farm), agrees. “With this year’s addition of honey bee hives to WCFF’s brownfield site [former industrial site], the population [of pollinators] will widen,” she says. “By inviting and stewarding pollinators [bees], we are working with nature the way nature wants us to.”

This month, visitors can get to know the busy bees behind the state’s pollination process. Both organizations will hold hive tours in addition to classes about beekeeping, local pollinators, and insects, plus a how-to course on creating a pollinator habitat. All classes this season will be hosted outdoors (weather permitting) by Cindy, alongside Shelby and the rest of WCFF staff. The group wishes to advocate healthy beekeeping practices in conjunction with the importance of the seed-to-harvest process that pollinators thrive on. They also plan to use participant feedback to tailor their classes to what people are most interested in.

As for the future, the two organizations share an enthusiasm to continue their collaboration, supporting each other for years to come.

WCFF and LRB encourage those interested in classes to sign up as soon as dates are posted, as class space and dates are limited. For the latest buzz on classes, both organizations recommend keeping up with their Facebook pages, Instagram, and websites. 

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