A Buzzing Day at the Story Garden!

Story Garden often becomes a unique space to travel, explore, and see the world around us with new eyes.

And all this, without moving from the Brownsville Houses! On a hot summer day in July, Story Garden in Brownsville, New York gathered seven children around Ana, a 27-year-old young woman from Argentina who was visiting the United States to present her beekeeping cooperative and her love for bees. With the help of Virginie and Monica, Story Garden facilitators, Ana and the children embarked on an adventure exploring all their senses and bursting imagination!

Drawing by NyNy (with the help of Ana), 3 year old.

It started with Ana explaining her work with bees: how bees worked as a community, and how together they were able to produce delicious honey by buzzing over flowers and collecting their nectars and pollen. On the other hand, flowers also needed bees to spread pollen from one flower to the other. It is a beautiful relationship of helping each other, and blooming together!

Ana explained the beekeeping process at the Story Garden,

Theory was then followed by practice! The group went on to explore the environment around them and look for flowers. Walking across the housing project, looking up and down, on the ground and in the air, left and right, for flowers of all colors. Here they were, beautiful pink flowers hanging on the fence! Oh, and look at these little yellow flowers next to the tomatoes!

Ana explains which flowers had been visited by bees already. After this little walk, the group of nature detectives sat back and enjoyed a honey degustation. For many children, this was their first time tasting the sweet nectar. What a discovery! What a smooth and floral taste!

Inspired by the flowers and the bees' stories, and energized by the honey, each child started to paint. A colorful world where bees and nature are connected and need each other—just like how we need each other to grow, blossom, and form a strong and peaceful community.