Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites

Bees are an important part of our ecosystem because they help our food grow. About one-third of our food is dependent upon pollination – mainly by honey bees, but also by other types of bees, insects, birds and bats.

At the Indiana State Museum you can find two bee hives on the east-side balcony overlooking the Watanabe Family Gardens. While you can’t see them from inside the museum, step out to the gardens and find a sign pointing up to the hives. These bees pollinate the mixture of prairie and shade-tolerant native plants in the gardens below, but they can travel up to four miles from their hives to pollinate plants. They gather the pollen and nectar from the plants and use the nectar to either draw comb (wax) or store as honey.

Learn more about bees and see photos of our hives in our blog, Bee-lieve it or not: Five things to know about honey bees.