October 10, 2023

Rooftop bee colonies are starting to be featured in Baltimore City's rooftop green spaces.

Recently, the University of Maryland Baltimore hosted a beekeeper to educate its community about how the school's hive plays on the ecosystem.

"I think a lot of people tend to think of beekeeping as something you do in more suburban or rural area," UMB's Director of Sustainability and Special Projects Elizabeth Main said. "We have…School(s) of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, so for those in that public health sector to realize the value of bees and show up today is really telling."

Local beekeeper Bill Castro of Bee Friendly Aviary placed a colony on the seventh-floor rooftop garden in March.

"Sometimes, it's kind of an experiment to place bees someplace and see how well they do," Castro said. "You would think you wouldn't be able to find much nutrition down on the street, but this healthy colony of bees tells you otherwise."

Castro hosted a "Beekeeper Talk" to educate some on campus about how bees are a primary way of plants getting pollination.

"This colony of bees up here, it's so full of honey, they're ready for winter. I don't need to do anything for them," Castro said.

Research from the University of Maryland College Park shows that American beekeepers lost almost half their hives in 2022.

The school hopes to add more hives to campus and install pollinator gardens to serve as habitats for bees. 

The "What's the Buzz?" event is part of a sustainability series for the school. A four-hour cleanup on campus is set for Wednesday, followed by recycling events to close out the week.