P52 :: week of March 30 :: new hope

bees, iowa, maplenol barn

I placed this pallet at dusk in an effort to beat the thunderstorms.

I have to talk a little about this new hive site. I was fortunate enough to gain a spot with a community garden where immigrant families can grow their native foods. I just love that idea. Back in the depths of winter, the garden program manager and I had preliminarily chosen a place that was “near” a plot worked by a woman who was not excited about bees (even though it would be fairly far away). After a walk around the property, we finally settled on a place and placed four markers to ‘save my spot.’

The garden has a place in my heart because it is on the same property as the Maplenol Barn, which we saved from demolition a few years ago. I feel like I’m her guardian, and now I get to be close to her. As I was emailing hive installation plans to the manager, he wrote the following:

I talked to the guy whose plot is closest to where we were going to place the bees.  He says they are his friends and he loves them and had 50 hives in Africa when he was little.

Eep! I love reading that.