Amid "Pollinator Week," designated June 21-27, BITD announced that in the summer of 2022, Detroit's Core City will be home to a pollinator center and series of botanical gardens. The center and gardens will utilize the vacant lots in Core City, helping to rebuild the neighborhood.

“We love the central location,” Roest-Peterson says. “We love the natural vibe of the Core City area that is occurring there, and we actually already have some bees at a cut flower garden that's in Core City.” The pollinator center will house different plants and bees, providing exposure and education to the community.

When it comes to creating an appetizing backyard habitat for bees, butterflies and other pollinators, MSU Extension’s Senior Horticulture Educator Rebecca Finneran borrows an expression from the 1989 Kevin Costner classic, “Field of Dreams”: If you build it, they will come.

“Habitat is habitat,” said Finneran. “It doesn’t have to be a pollinator garden. Our entire landscape can be a pollinator garden.”

Still, if you want to do your part to help the pollinators upon which our food chain relies, there are ways to do it and it’s about being thoughtful and intentional with what you plant. Use a mix of plants that bloom throughout the year, from spring to late fall, and steer clear of too much mulch and especially pesticides, experts say.

Bringing Michigan bee numbers back is going to take more than beekeepers and legislators, Milbrath said, especially if you want to see native bees, like bumblebees, long-horned bees and mason bees.

“It really does taking lots of people evaluating [their choices],” Milbrath said.

Bee enthusiasts and educators are going out to inform the public about the role that bees play in agriculture and the environment and how they can help.

As Peterson-Roest has learned, bees don’t only thrive in rural pastures and sprawling farmland. Instead, bees like biodiversity, meaning small, individual gardens can help give native bees the food they need.

Brian Peterson-Roest believes it’s going to take a whole lot of worker bees, both human and insect, to keep the Michigan honeybee population healthy. But he has reason to be hopeful.

The beekeeper is the founder of non-profit group Bees in the D, which started out in 2016 with six Detroit hives and a goal to support honeybees in metro Detroit. Now, Peterson-Roest and his team manage over 175 honeybee hives across six counties in 50 locations, cooperating with residents, schools, scout groups and businesses to support honeybee health. But it takes some serious teamwork.

Beekeeper and elementary school teacher Brian Peterson-Roest also had a vision to transform Detroit into a honeybee haven. But rather than focusing exclusively on vacant lots, the founder of Bees in the D, another honeybee and pollinator-focused….

As we look forward to 2020, we have one main goal in mind - to break ground on our Education Community Center. Originally, this center was a part of our 10-year plan, but because of the generous support we have felt in just 4 short years & because honey bees continue to face many environmental issues, we believe the need for this center in Detroit is now. The honey bee population is still declining worldwide due to diseases, pesticides, & weather…

Bees In The D makes a lot of honey, partnering with landowners, the nonprofit places beehives all around the city and beyond. To date, they have 180 hives, spanning across five Michigan counties.

Two of those bee hives are located atop of the old Stroh’s Beer Factory in Eastern Market, now home to the Whiskey Room production room and event space for Detroit City Distillery (DCD). And, some of that honey has been put to a very special use.

Bees In The D and DCD have partnered up to make two very special products: Bourbon Barrel Aged Honey and Honey Bourbon.

Bees In The D aged a batch of their raw honey in a previously used whiskey barrel to pick up the whiskey taste. Whiskey that’s good for you? It’s a possibility.

At its core, the organization exists to cultivate the honeybee population. Peterson-Roest explains that he works with Detroiters interested in hosting hives that the Bees in the D will manage; or who, once trained, will manage their own beehives. Each hive site is scouted in advance, and could be in a back yard, community garden, residential or commercial rooftop, or virtually anywhere that’s legally allowed.

Along with hobbyist beekeepers, Bees in the D collaborates with many Detroit-based businesses small and large, including sustainability teams of the big-three automakers, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. Several more companies and institutions even make the hives essential parts of their own environmental programs, including the Cobo Center’s “living green roof.” Whether through financial support, or materials, talent, and or space donations, Peterson-Roest says it’s encouraging that local companies “care about pollinators in our ecosystem.”

Whether you’re a local Detroiter, or an individual who has never stepped foot in the Motor City, the industrial renown of Detroit is understood by many. From its rich roots in factories and large warehouses to the environment of engineering brought upon by the automobile industry, the city made a name built upon the foundation of metal and motors. Unfortunately with that reputation, came a legacy of pollution and other not so friendly environmental…

The Bon Bon Bon employees, known as the Babes Babes Babes, suited up to check out the honey bees located on the roof of the new shop in Hamtramck. The nonprofit Bees in the D partnered with Bon Bon Bon to produce honey that will be used for the chocolates. Hamtramck — Bon Bon Bon has said bon voyage to its first chocolate shop in Hamtramck and moved into a new space that’s affectionately nicknamed “The Building Building Building.”