Shelby Park Bees

BEES SUPPORT A HEALTHY PARK

Shelby Bottoms is home to more than a dozen beehives in three locations. With the help of volunteer beekeepers, these hives help pollinate plants all across the park and across East Nashville.

Beekeepers tend hives at the Shelby Bottoms Nature Center, on the island in Lake Sevier, and at the Cornelia Fort Airpark. Stop by the Shelby Bottoms Nature Center and pick up some honey while supplies last!

Friends of Shelby supports the care and maintenance of the bees and hives and is investing in expanding pollinator plants like flowering fruit trees, herbs, and native perennials.

Visit the garden at the Shelby Bottoms Nature Center to find out more about plants that support bees and other polinators.

5 FACTS ABOUT HONEY BEES

• Honey bees must gather nectar from two million flowers to make one pound of honey.

• A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.

• A honey bee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as 15 miles per hour.

• Honey bees communicate with one another by dancing.

• A colony of bees consists of 20,000-60,000 honey bees and one queen. Worker honey bees are female, live for about 6 weeks and do all the work.