Mayor adds bees to garden atop Chicago City Hall

CHICAGO -- The buzz around city hall has nothing to do with politics, money or influence.

It's the sound of thousands of honeybees.

The city called in beekeepers to install hives on the building's roof this spring to help in the pollination of flowers on the building's 30,000 square foot rooftop garden.

Adding bees apparently was Mayor Richard Daley's idea.

The way Stephanie Averill understands it, the idea came to Daley during a conversation with a friend of hers.

"Somehow, I don't know how, they were talking and she mentioned she had a friend who keeps bees in the city," said Averill, a 39-year-old model who has a hive in the yard of her home in the Bucktown neighborhood.

"The next thing I know I get a call from the city and before you know it I was sitting in the mayor's office feeling a little like Forrest Gump, and he's saying he wants to put beehives on the roof," Averill said.

She told Michael Thompson, an avid beekeeper himself who has taught beekeeping, about the idea.

He was skeptical it would happen, in part because he didn't know of any other city that had done such a thing.

"I thought the red tape would get in the way," said Thompson, who apparently knows a lot more about bees than the mayor's ability to make red tape disappear.

120,000 by summer

At the end of April, Averill and Thompson were on the roof next to the garden setting up two wooden beehives. Today, the hives, about the size and shape of television sets, are home to about 6,000 nonaggressive European honeybees.

Because bees are busy, Averill estimates that population will be about 120,000 by the middle of the summer.

Daley had the garden planted three years ago after seeing similar ones in Germany and deciding it would be a good way to absorb storm water, purify air and insulate the building.

The bees are a natural addition, Daley said in a statement.

"It fits into what a garden should have," explained Barry Burton, a city planner whose job is to help carry out the mayor's environmental agenda. "In this case we have lots of flowers and we want to get them pollinated, and the bees are a perfect answer for that."

The bees have ranged a bit beyond City Hall, apparently traveling a few blocks east to Grant Park and to the tulips in the median strip of Michigan Avenue.

Then there's the honey. Averill said she expects each hive to produce about 150 pounds by the end of the summer. It will be sold at the city's Cultural Center.

But Averill said the biggest benefit is what the project will teach the city's residents.

"Really, the coolest thing is it educates people about nature," she said. "People in urban environments separate themselves from nature. But nature happens here."