Bee City USA

Want to help pollinators? See the documents below.

Town initiatives to reverse pollinator declines include:

• Installing and maintaining pollinator gardens at Cates Creek and Gold parks and in downtown planters and parking lot islands. The town continues to work with the Orange County Master Gardener Program of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Orange County Center to facilitate monthly workdays spring through fall at the Gold Park garden, which master gardeners helped install.
• Operating an information booth with the Orange County Beekeepers Association at the Last Fridays downtown arts event.
• Commissioning and maintaining a bee hotel at the Gold Park pollinator garden in partnership with several area organizations.
• Training Tree Board members in pollinator garden installation and maintenance.

Dedicated in November 2017, the bee hotel provides a home for the 90 species of bees native to the area, many of which live solitary lives and seek a safe, tunnel-like dwelling to lay eggs and care for their young.

The bee hotel is located in the Gold Park pollinator garden, 415 Dimmocks Mill Road, along the Riverwalk greenway, south of the railroad trestle.

A public call for design submissions was issued in June 2017, with a selection committee choosing a design submitted by Orange County landscape designer and builder David Hinkle in July 2017.

The bee hotel and pollinator garden are maintained by the Orange County Master Gardener Program, a program of the Orange County Center of the N.C. Cooperative Extension.