Originally published in the Park Bugle, October 2026.
The newest addition planned for the SAP Community Garden won’t grow from the soil.
It will live in a hive.
The St. Anthony Park Community Council has approved a proposal to allow managed honey bee colonies at the Community Garden, adding another dimension to a neighborhood space already devoted to growing food, caring for the land and helping people learn how natural systems work.
The idea comes from two people with particularly deep roots in the garden.
Lynn Hartweck and Michael Walsh have each gardened at the SAP Community Garden for more than 20 years.
Hartweck is a third-generation beekeeper who has also served as a garden section manager and completed University of Minnesota beekeeping coursework. Walsh has seven years of beekeeping experience in the Twin Cities and completed the University of Minnesota’s Beekeeping in Northern Climates course in 2025. Both regularly participate in meetings of the Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association.
They brought their proposal to SAPCC’s Environment Committee on June 24.
Their reasons for introducing honey bees to the garden were straightforward: pollination, the potential for better garden yields, and education.
After hearing the presentation and reviewing the proposal, the Environment Committee voted unanimously to allow honey bee colonies at the Community Garden. The St. Anthony Park Community Council subsequently gave the proposal its formal approval.
The preferred location for the hive boxes is north of the garden shed.
The approval does not mean hives are already sitting in the garden. Rather, it clears the way for the project to continue toward establishment of managed colonies.
When that happens, the bees will become part of a much larger growing system.
Pollination is one of the quiet processes behind much of what eventually ends up in a garden harvest.
As bees move among flowers collecting nectar and pollen, they also carry pollen between blossoms. For many flowering plants, that movement helps make the production of fruit and seeds possible.
For a garden filled with vegetables, fruit, flowers and other flowering plants, additional pollinator activity can support the work already happening throughout the growing season.
But Hartweck and Walsh’s proposal is about more than putting hive boxes on the property and waiting for honey.
Their plan lays out year-round care for the colonies.
Late winter and early spring bring checks for winter survival and supplemental feeding when necessary. During spring and summer, the beekeepers monitor queens, colony growth, mites and other potential problems. Additional hive space can be added as colonies grow, and the plan calls for organic treatment when needed.
Late summer may eventually bring an opportunity to harvest honey.
Then the work turns toward helping the colonies prepare for another Minnesota winter.
In other words, the hives will be living colonies requiring regular observation, knowledge and stewardship.
That is also part of their educational value.
A community garden makes processes visible that most of us rarely stop to think about.
A seed goes into the soil. A plant grows. A flower opens. An insect visits. Fruit develops. Eventually, something is harvested.
The bee hives will provide another way to see those connections up close.
Neighbors may have opportunities to learn how a honey bee colony functions, what beekeepers look for at different times of year, how colonies survive Minnesota winters, and why pollination is important to many of the plants growing around them.
That educational purpose was part of Hartweck and Walsh’s proposal from the beginning.
And it fits naturally in a community garden.
The SAP Community Garden has long been a place where neighbors grow food and learn from one another. Over time, the space has also become home to shared plantings, fruit trees, habitat work and other forms of environmental stewardship.
Managed honey bees will add one more living piece to that landscape.
There is plenty of work ahead before anyone gets to taste the honey.
But once the hives are established, some of the newest workers at the SAP Community Garden will have six legs, two pairs of wings and a remarkably short commute.
Learn more about the SAP Community Garden and ways to get involved at sapcc.org/community-garden/.