The Hillsborough Garden Club encouraged the town to seek Bee City USA status. It helps develop the program and educational materials with the Hillsborough Public Space and Sustainability Division and Hillsborough Tree Board.

Bee City USA primarily focuses on native species of bees. It gives communities a framework to help native pollinators by providing habitats with a variety of native plants and nest sites and with protection from pesticides.

See:

• Hillsborough's Bee City USA resolution
• Bee City USA website

Bee Hotel

The bee hotel provides a home for the 90 species of bees native to the area.

The hotel is located at the Gold Park pollinator garden and includes tunnel-like dwellings for native bees to lay eggs and care for their young. Many of these bees live solitary lives.

The Hillsborough Tree Board partnered with the Hillsborough Tourism Development Authority and Orange County Arts Commission to pay for the hotel. The design was selected following a public call for submissions. Orange County landscape designer and builder David Hinkle built the hotel, which was dedicated in 2017.

Volunteers

The pollinator garden is maintained by the Orange County Master Gardener Program, a program of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Orange County Center. To help maintain the garden or bee hotel, contact the Public Space and Sustainability Division.

Gold Park is located at 415 Dimmocks Mill Road. The bee hotel and garden are along the Riverwalk greenway, south of the railroad trestle.

Pollinator-friendly Activities

Hillsborough has a number of initiatives to reverse pollinator declines. To volunteer, contact the Public Space and Sustainability Division.

Activities

Bee Hotel — The town commissioned and maintains a bee hotel at the Gold Park pollinator garden with several area organizations.

Pollinator Gardens — The town installed and maintains pollinator gardens at:

• Cates Creek and Gold parks
• Downtown planters and parking lot islands

Orange County master gardeners helped install the garden at Gold Park and hold monthly workdays March-October at the garden.

The town, Tree Board and other partners offer a number of resources to help community members help pollinators.

• Designing a Rain Garden
• Growing Edible Landscaping
• Landscaping with Native Plants
• Swarm Season: Help Honeybees Find a New Home
• Native Plants for Bee Forage for the North Carolina Piedmont
• Top 25 Native Pollinator Plants for North Carolina