Our New Friends, The Bees
Published: 09/30/24
Updated: 01/09/25
While the United States is home to over 4,000 different species of native bees, unfortunately, one in four are in danger of going extinct. To help raise awareness about conservation and educate residents on biodiversity, last year Veris Residential welcomed some new residents into our communities, honeybees!
One of the primary causes of bee endangerment is habitat loss, so we’ve taken in over 750,000 honeybees across 15 of our communities as a part of our Embrace the Bees project. Each community has installed two hives, which are home to a queen and her steadily growing cohort of worker bees. Our properties are located throughout the Northeast, with some in more urban and suburban environments. By welcoming these hives to the concrete jungles of our city-based properties, we’ve enabled these diligent workers to pollinate a full three-mile radius around each of our communities!
Projects like our urban beehives are designed to connect our residents with our sustainability initiatives in a tangible way. While we’ve significantly reduced our energy consumption and carbon footprint, these actions are less visible, mostly occurring in the background of our communities. Our honeybees, on the other hand, are something residents can not only see, but also engage with by visiting the hives with a trained beekeeper or enjoying complementary honey from their community’s hives
The bees come alongside a number of resident-facing amenities dedicated to that same purpose, including our hydroponic farms, resident composting, community gardens, EV chargers and much more.
Since installing the hives, we have been working with our partner Alvéole to promote awareness of how important our flower-loving friends are. During resident workshops with professional beekeepers, our residents are encouraged to live more sustainably by learning more about nature, the bees and the ways human actions affect both. Connecting our urban residents to nature is a surefire way to promote sustainable living, which is exactly what we at Veris want to ensure for our residents.
As previously mentioned, we collect honey and wax from our hives to create complimentary products for our residents. What we have left over, and given how hard our bees work there’s a good amount, we donate to our philanthropic partners.
Working in tandem with Alvéole’s urban beekeepers, we sent 1,270 candles to active service members and veterans at Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst, also known as Fort Dix, an Air Force base in Burlington County, New Jersey. The wax used to make these candles comes directly from the 30 beehives that call Veris Residential’s communities their home!
We connected to Fort Dix through our partnership with the American Red Cross, who offers military families in crisis aid including food, clothing and financial assistance, while also supporting deployed service members as they return home during family emergencies. Veris is proud of our connections to organizations such as the Red Cross, as it is a part of our mission and The Veris Promise to help the wider community grow and flourish.
Of course, we didn’t forget our Veris residents. In addition to the donated candles, we gave residents complimentary jars of fresh honey made from the products of our busy Veris bees. (Don’t worry they were packaged sustainably as well, shelled in containers gleaned from vetted, sustainable suppliers.)
Each Veris community has the opportunity to experience a special kind of adventure with our bees and professional beekeepers twice a year.
- Meet the Bees at Home — Many of us are nervous about getting too close to beehives. After all, while honeybees aren’t aggressive, any animal or insect gets defensive when a very large creature gets close to its home. But Alvéole’s beekeepers know how to keep the bees calm and sedated, and they know exactly how much distance we need to keep while still getting an up close and personal look at our Veris hives. It’s perfectly safe, and residents get a chance to see how our Veris bees work to sustain their home.
- Honey Jarring — We regularly collect honey from the hives alongside beeswax. This part of the event will have residents packaging our natural honey into sustainable containers that they can take home for use in their own kitchen!
- Communicating the Benefits of Biodiversity — During this event, our residents learn about the benefits of sustainability projects like this and all the good they do for our communities. Plant growth, reduced emissions, air quality—all of these things come about due to the wonders of biodiversity.
Our friends the bees have established themselves as important residents of our Veris communities, helping us keep our cities green, our plants thriving and our lives enriched. Protecting bees is essential for us to continue living on this little Earth we call home, and Veris Residential is proud to be a part of the ever-growing movement to keep them safe.
