VAN BUREN, Maine – The town of Van Buren’s community garden project, which will transform a 3.1-acre cul-de-sac devastated by a flood into a creative community space with a garden and greenhouse, will feature a spot where the town can keep bees and harvest honey.
Town Manager Luke Dyer updated the town council on the honey project during a meeting in early December, announcing that they received a $2,500 grant from the Maine Bee Wellness program to buy all the equipment and to start harvesting honey for four hives.
Dyer said they will be working with a contact from the Amish community in Easton throughout the process.
“They’re going to have classes this winter that we’re going to be able to attend,” Dyer said. “And he also said he’d be happy to come up and check the hive.”
He said this is just one piece of the larger overall community garden project.
Over half of the $77,785 community garden project was funded via a $44,345 Community Action Grant through the Community Resilience Partnership, which falls under the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future. The partnership helps small towns address the effects of climate change. Van Buren is one of 226 Maine communities participating in the program.
In addition to the honey harvesting operation, community garden, and greenhouse, Van Buren’s project will also include a park, walking path, pavilion, and dog park.
The remainder of funding for the project will be covered through in-kind labor and municipal funds. Dyer said the honey harvesting project could also provide revenue for the town.
“My thinking from the beginning was that this would drive a bit of revenue for the community garden project so that we could keep the seed garden active,” he said. “That even after the grant funding runs out, that we’ll have money year to year to year if we can keep the bees alive to keep supporting that project.”
Dyer said that he has also volunteered to help maintain the hives, and will be getting mentoring at first.
“I’ve always been kind of interested in it,” he said, “but I wanted to make sure somebody was showing us, that knew what they were doing.”
He joked that beekeeping is not something he wanted to learn by simply going to “YouTube University,” or watching online videos.
Town officials said the bees are expected to arrive in June of 2025.
