In 1949, The Junior League of Miami’s Project Finding Committee decided that the children of Dade County needed a place to explore, expand their minds, and experiment with the world around them. In other words, they needed a science museum. And it only took a year to get the ball rolling with a lot of momentum. The Junior Museum of Miami opened in a house on the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and 26th Street, but it didn’t take long for it to outgrow its first home. After a few years, moves, and name changes, the Museum opened at its current location on the grounds of the historic Vizcaya complex – and now, it’s growing even more, with construction under way for the new Patricia and Philip Frost Museum of Science in downtown Miami. It all began with a simple but clear vision from The Junior League of Miami, and the League continues to support the Museum today, over 60 years later. As visitors to the early science museum will tell you, children would come from all over just to see “the beehive in the chimney.” So, what better way to support the Museum than to bring back the bees? (The non-killer kind.) With a donation from the Junior League of Miami to build a brand new beehive exhibit, and help from Bunch Farms in installing the hive, the next generation of Dade County’s children can see (and even hear) inside the busy buzzing lives of bees.

Junior League President Katie Lane Arriola, Museum President Gillian Thomas, Junior League Past President Dana Martorella

Junior League of Miami members are joined by their kids, with Museum President Gillian Thomas, by the Bees exhibit

Bee Puppet Show!

The new Bees exhibit

The busy buzzing bees at the Museum

The bees are here at the Miami Science Museum, thanks to support from the Junior League of Miami! Don’t worry – these are NOT killer bees. These are European honey bees, which are known to be calm, easily handled, and not at all aggressive. The bees’ main focus is to mind their own business and work on their hive, which was set up last weekend by Inese and Jason Bunch from Bunch Farms. Inese got the colony of bees settled in their new home, which is also a new exhibit at the Museum where you can see inside the everyday lives and home of bees. So next time you are at the Museum, you will be able to see the bees close-up from inside the Museum, while the bees still have access to the outside environment. You may even see a bee with a blue dot on her back. This is the queen, and every hive has one. You also may see the bees wiggle in certain patterns and angles. Bees do this to communicate with other bees, telling them where good sources of pollen can be found. Or you may just see them busily buzzing about their hive.

Recently, the Junior League of Miami wanted to support a new project at the Museum targeted for young children. The idea of a bee hive was agreed upon, and as luck would have it, we later discovered a beehive in an avocado tree outside the Museum. The family-owned Bunch Farms volunteered to help with the Observation Bee Hive Project, which will allow visitors to see inside a bee hive (safely) to observe the life and times of a honey bee. Inese from Bunch Farms, who has been working on the project, comes from a long line of farmers. Her grandfather started beekeeping as a hobby in Latvia, and after moving to Miami, finishing school, and becoming a certified beekeeper, Inese is now following in his footsteps at Bunch Farms. After locating the queen bee in the Museum’s hive, Inese relocated the hive to Bunch Farms apiary to observe the colony, and by the second day in their new home, the bees were already organizing themselves and bringing pollen back to their hive. But they still needed a little encouragement, in the form of some honey and pollen from Bunch Farms, to stay and build their new home. To be ready for relocation to their permanent home at the Museum, Inese will need to split and “re-queen” the colonies, because each hive needs their own queen to keep a calm and friendly hive. Once the hive is installed at the Museum, children and adults alike will be able to literally see inside the amazing lives of bees.

In the video below, you can see a new queen bee communicating with bees in her hive, letting them know that she is present (and letting any other queen bees know that they need to leave).