Located beside the Franklin Dining Commons in the heart of campus, the Franklin Permaculture Garden offers a place to connect with nature, observe wild pollinators, and learn about agricultural practices that sustain both people and the land. Beginning in 2010, a student-led project converted a grassy lawn into the Franklin Permaculture Garden. Today the garden grows over 100 species of plants and produces over 1,000 lbs of food for the campus dining commons and UMass community. Many of the plant species in the garden such as elderberries, wild strawberries, American cranberry bush viburnum, and chestnut trees, provide food for native pollinators.
The garden also houses a bee hotel and wild bee nesting structures maintained by the UMass Bee Campus Committee, the UMass Permaculture Initiative and the Beekeeping Club. Bee hotels use wood or hollow stems to create cavities for cavity and stem nesting wild bees. They serve as excellent educational tools, demonstrating how solitary bees build their nests, individually rather than in hives! Bee hotels require regular cleaning and maintenance. The UMass Bee Campus Committee hosts a yearly “Bee Hotel Learning and Cleaning Event” every spring. Keep an eye out for this event in late April and consider joining the student run Permaculture Initiative.
In Spring 2025 the Bee Campus Committee replaced the old wooden nesting blocks with fresh ones and within a few days wild bees began building their nests in the holes. Pictured here is a recently made bee nest capped with mud.