Best Bees' Mother's Day workshop a family affair

Best Bees Company, a beekeeping services company and bee research center located at 839 Albany Street, drew a fair amount of new buzz at its DIY Day at SoWa, 500 Harrison Avenue, on Sunday, May 13, educating approximately 20 registered participants and many more passersby on the lives, ecological importance and care of bees.

Best Bees exhibited some of its wares, including a decorated hive enclosure and a tabletop-size hive frame. Participants who registered and paid $15 for the workshop created their own bee hotels, learned how to harvest honey from the hive and received goodie bags containing a sample jar of Best Bees honey, a honey dipper, a small, botanical art print and a bar of honey soap.

As the event fell on Mother's Day, Best Bees founder and chief scientific officer Noah Wilson-Rich, Ph.D., and his staff were joined by his mother Lynne Wilson-Rich, a retired teacher who schooled children and adults on the lives and habits of bees as well as their vital role in our food supply and the ecosystem.

SoWa shoppers of all ages stopped at the Best Bees exhibit to observe the hive frame, roughly the size of a large book, which contained about 1,000 bees per Wilson-Rich's estimate and ask questions. Wilson-Rich said that although it was a cool, cloudy day, the temperature inside the hive was about 90 degrees, as the bees cuddled together for warmth around the queen.

Under a tent, participants crafted and painted bee hotels: small, wooden boxes with holes in them for the bees to rest and nest. Nearby, Wilson-Rich demonstrated scraping honey from a larger hive into a bucket with an uncapping tool, then dispensed the honey through a spigot into sample jars. Noting the varied shades of the honey in the hive, he explained that the lighter honey was made earlier in the season and the darker honey came in the fall, the difference in shade owing to the bees' contact with different flower species.

Commenting on the significant, worldwide die-off of bees in recent years, Wilson-Rich, whose business funds his research on bee health, said, "Bees are dying less so in cities. We are studying that to try to understand why. Boston is very good for bees." Wilson-Rich also pointed out that the diversity of plantings in urban gardens and parks is very beneficial to bees, as opposed to the more limited variety of plants growing in many less-populated areas.

Noah Wilson-Rich said afterward that the workshop was a success, generating several sales and many leads for the company's beekeeping services. He commented, "We were able to engage with everyone, doing the activities or not, because our staff were available to speak with the community about our mission, to improve bee health together with the community."

Lynne Wilson-Rich traveled from Connecticut to spend Mother's Day her son and assist with the workshop.

Noah Wilson-Rich said, "She's very sweet: she let me put her to work on Mother's Day. We like to do events together...We're both teachers at heart, so teaching the public about our work with beekeeping services was so rewarding." Lynne Wilson-Rich said proudly, "I think it makes Mother's Day all the more special. [Noah] is making the world a better place for all of us."