GREENFIELD — Court Square buzzed and bustled with bees and people Saturday, as Greenfield’s Second Congregational Church hosted the ninth annual Langstroth Bee Fest.
Children’s activities, informational sessions about beekeeping and cooking and baking with honey — even a farmers market — lined the street by the church, all to teach people about the importance of bees.
“One of our goals is the community aspect. We want to educate people about how great bees are,” said Bee Fest Co-chair Sue Weeks.
Weeks invoked Albert Einstein’s quote, “If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live,” and said, “That’s not an exaggeration.”
The day kicked off with kids activities like a bee piñata, a bee parade and a tea party. Volunteers wearing yellow and black showed children a live hive in a glass case, and helped them identify the queen bee.
“It started for kids so they wouldn’t be afraid of bees, and know how important they are,” said Weeks, who pointed out the importance of bees to the ecosystem, given they pollinate plants and flowers.
Weeks said the festival brought in around 800 people — more than any prior bee fest — and that money collected via donation at the free event will go to Just Roots, a local farming and educational nonprofit, and Heifer International, which has used proceeds from Bee Fest to supply agricultural products and bee hives to impoverished areas of Guatemala.
“In the past we’ve been able to give 21 Bee Hives (through Heifer International),” Weeks said.
According to Bee Fest Co-chair Sandy Thomas, the festival honors the Reverend Lorenzo L. Langstroth, the “father of American beekeeping,” who invented the moveable-frame beehive, now ubiquitous among North American beekepers.
Langstroth was a resident of Greenfield in the 1840s and 1850s, and, as pastor of the Second Congregational Church which hosts the event, he kept bees, developed theories about the space they needed and invented the modern beehive.
His book, “Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey Bee, A Bee Keeper’s Manual,” was the first in America to tackle the physiology and habits of honey bees. Langstroth’s 1853 “Beekeepers Bible” is still printed and in use today.
“Around his birthday about nine years ago, we discovered how hugely important of a person he was,” Thomas said.
“(The first year) we only had a couple hundred people, then bam,” she added with excitement.
Up and down the street, farmers set up stands where they sold produce and flowers.
David Paysnick of Rainbow Harvest Farm in Greenfield, said the farmers market happens each year in concurrence and collaboration with Bee Fest.
“It’s good because we have bee-friendly plants — no pesticides,” Paysnick said.
Thomas said taking care of bees is important, because their honey is not only tasty, but has medicinal properties. People should be mindful of bees, she said, and the festival is one way to get people to do that.
Having this festival at this location was meant to be, Thomas said, not only because of the history involving Langstroth, but because of a good omen.
“Three years ago, a guy was walking by the church and says, ‘I come here every day and I clean up all the dead bees,’” Thomas said.
Thomas recalled being perplexed, asking the man what he meant. Then, the man pointed up to the cross affixed to the roof of the church. Underneath that cross was a lively beehive, and it’s still there today, a coincidental nod to Langstroth’s legacy.
The ninth annual Langstroth Bee Fest was sponsored by Franklin County Beekeepers, Tire Warehouse, Hawks and Reed Performing Arts Center, Pioneer Gardens, Sherwin Williams, Karen’s Dance Studio, MagPie, Copy Cat and the Greenfield Farmer’s Market.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.