Ford Moves Honeycomb Sail Beehives to North Pond Area at WHQ
Way back in May, which, let’s face it, feels like about three lifetimes ago, Ford revealed a new global beekeeping program that included the use of six stylish Honeycomb Sail beehives on the campus of its World Headquarters in Dearborn. This month, Ford completed the task of moving the six hives and all the bees and honey they contain to a new permanent location at WHQ’s North Pond area.
The hives were previously located along a walking path north of WHQ’s main building, but the new location is where Ford expects to grow the population of bees inhabiting the hives to 360,000. When the hives were moved this month, they weighed a total of 700 pounds, which included all of the bees and honey contained within.
Naturally, Ford and its Ford Bees volunteers — yes, there is a sector called Ford Bees — made the transition to the new locale with the aid of a Ford F-150 Lariat 4×4. What else would they use? A Super Bee? A Stinger? That’s just a little bee humor for ya. Don’t like it. Buzz off. I’ve got jokes for days!
Ford took a vested interest in bees when it began beekeeping at the historic Rouge Complex. Ford employee Mary Mason served as beekeeper for 80,000 honeybees as part of the complex’s efforts toward more sustainability. In 2017, one of the winning entries in the Ford College Community Challenge was Townbee, which helped both foster a strong bee population in Germany and allow Syrian refugees to become integrated into their new community.
Ford expects that each of the six hives will host a population of 60,000 bees by the summer, and data pulled from the hives will be provided to the Sentinel Apiary Program in an effort to help improve honeybee health worldwide.
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