Getting Buzzed at Bartram’s Garden: Philly’s Bees and Their Honey Show off Their Stuff

by Cassie Hepler

DON SHUMP, who tends to honeycomb hives at Sofitel and owner of Phila. Bee Co., will be there donning his bee beard. He watches over most hives in the city of Phila. Photo by Sarah Plonski

In case you didn’t know already, there is a 45-acre garden and waterfront oasis in Southwest Philly just waiting for you to buzz on over, especially this coming weekend at 54th Street & Lindbergh Boulevard. So why not make like a bee?

“Bartram’s Garden is a National Historic Landmark, operated by the John Bartram Association in cooperation with the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Dept. It is a destination and an outdoor classroom, living laboratory, and membership organization for ever-expanding audiences – over 50,000 visitors each year and counting,” said the space’s marketing coordinator, Michael J. Nevadomski.

It is also a perfect place to chill out at the first-ever Ice Cream Social during the Philadelphia Honey Festival on Sunday, Sept. 11 from 3 to 5 p.m., while enjoying Little Baby’s Ice Cream garden-infused flavors as well as boozy ice cream floats and cocktails from Art in the Age.
Treats for children, period lawn games and authentic country dances are also bound to get people moving.

An outdoor public paradise for more than two centuries, Bartram’s Garden has stepped up its special programing of late across three seasons of the year.

“Bartram’s Garden is a place where people of all ages can access one of Philly’s greatest natural resources: the Tidal Schuylkill River (the lower section of the river, south of the Water Works),” Nevadomski elaborated. “We offer free kayak and rowboat rides every Saturday until the end of October from our new Community Boathouse, with all equipment provided, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

HONEY-INFUSED, locally sourced treats will be on display at Bartram’s Garden.

“There are also special Tuesday Sunset Paddles for those who support the garden through membership,” he continued. “In the summertime, we also host RiverFest and an annual ‘boat parade,’ which draws many participants from the surrounding community of Southwest Philadelphia. There are also a fair number of fishermen who frequent our pier.”
But this weekend’s activity is especially sweet.

“This is the seventh year of the Philadelphia Honey Festival, and the fourth year we’ve hosted it at Bartram’s Garden, Nevadomski said. “Typically, we throw a cocktail party featuring Bartram’s Bitters – a cocktail bitters recreated by Philadelphia Distilling from a rediscovered recipe in our archives. This year, however (with stock of the Bitters running low and potentially on hold indefinitely) and the July 2016 opening of the Carr Garden on the landward side of the 1731 Bartram House, we decided to celebrate a little differently” with the ice cream social, he said.

The event hearkens back to Ann Bartram Carr, granddaughter of America’s pioneering botanist John Bartram, who inaugurated Bartram’s Garden as a public destination in the early 1800s with her “display garden” of exotics and new ornamentals from Asia and South America for

CHILD meets bee, in a good way. Close encounters like this, safely supervised, may happen at the Phila. Honey Festival in S.W. Phila. this Saturday. Photo by Sarah Plonski

sale alongside the family’s native seed business. While her grandfather always welcomed visitors, Ann was the first of her family to specifically invite the public to the house and garden as a destination. Her advertisements in local Philadelphia periodicals offered steamboat rides on the Schuylkill from what is now Center City, a tour of the grounds, and ice cream as a concession.

“The Buzzed event was organized through our recurring association with Little Baby’s Ice Cream (a West Philadelphia business) and through common botanical interests with Art in the Age,” Nevadomski said. “The social itself will be something a little different; it features unique flavors (paw-paw ice cream!) as well as unique combinations (boozy floats).”

“What I think is cool is that the activities really run the gamut … you’ve got hands-on bee-keeping demonstrations – we open a bee hive, we extract honey – we have an observation hive. These activities are at the core and the true essence of the event, since the Honey Festival is the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild’s premier education event to raise awareness about honeybees and their importance to our world,” said Kathy May, communications coordinator of the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild.

BEEKEEPER Adam Schreiber, past president of the Phila. Beekeepers Guild and owner of WellPoint Oriental Medicine, tends to a complaint of bees making a home in a trash can. Philadelphians can email the guild online and submit a complaint with photo when they have bees that have taken up residence in parts of homes. Photo by Sarah Plonski

“There is also a bee-costume parade for the kids (although I think I’ve seen a parent or two in on the action),” said May. “And for the adults, there are cooking demonstrations, beer-making demonstrations – all with honey, of course. A real important part this year is our keynote speaker, Dr. Deborah Delaney, as well as live music, and we are selling honey from 11 local beekeepers.”

There are 73 beekeepers registered in the state of Pennsylvania with Philly addresses.
“So as far as the guild knows, that’s the best number we have for beekeepers in the city. Those beekeepers represent 314 beehive colonies,” she said.

Tickets for the event are $15 for general admission and $12 for Bartram’s Garden members. Tickets are available at bartramsgarden.org/buzzed. Proceeds benefit Bartram’s Garden. For full details, go to phillyhoneyfest.com.

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