City supports The BEE Project
The Purple Tree shop, the Peaslee family and Pack 463 planted this BEE Project garden at the beginning of the dike road. City supports The BEE Project

It’s the city’s way of supporting The BEE Project, an initiative dreamed up by Danielle Vogler and funded with a Project SPARK grant from the Hudson Community Foundation.

Vogler is the daughter of Deborah and Patrick Volger of Hudson. She is a 2011 graduate of Hudson High School, earned a degree in biology from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2014, and currently is a student at Southwest College of Natural Medicine in Tempe, Ariz.

Last year when the foundation solicited ideas for projects that would improve the community, Vogler proposed increasing the bee population by recruiting people to plant wildflower gardens.

Her idea was to use Bee Bombs produced by Plantables, a Hudson company that provides jobs for people of all abilities, to plant the gardens.

Vogler received the most votes of three finalists who presented their ideas at a community meeting last fall and was awarded up to $20,000 to complete the project.

Bee populations have been in global decline since the 1940s, Volger told the Star-Observer earlier this year.

“This loss has been attributed to monoculture agriculture practices, the use of synthetic pesticides, flowerless landscapes and natural diseases,” she said. “It is important to be aware of this due to the fact that honeybees are our largest pollinators of our fruits, vegetables, flowers and crops.”

Vogler said one-third of the world’s food supply is dependent on bee pollination, so the health of bees is a good indicator of both environmental and human health.

In early 2016, Vogler reached out to individuals, families, schools, churches, businesses and other organizations to participate in The BEE Project by adopting a spot to plant wildflowers — either on their own property or land provided by another person or organization.

Close to 200 people attended the April 2 project kickoff event at YMCA Camp St.