The Village of Barrington Hills is proud to announce it is officially a Bee City USA affiliate, becoming one of the first in Illinois.  Resident Virginia Brown presented the idea to President McLaughlin and staff at a time when the Village was highlighting beekeeping on residential properties within the Village.

“We are extremely pleased for the Village of Barrington Hills to have been approved as one of the state’s first Bee Cities.  This designation highlights what we’ve all known: that we celebrate, protect, and embrace our agricultural history and our open space conservation efforts,” said President McLaughlin.

In order to enhance the understanding about the vital role that pollinators play and what each of us can do to sustain them, the Village of Barrington Hills chooses to support and encourage healthy pollinator habitat creation and enhancement by assigning the Village’s Environment Committee, chaired by Trustee Paula Jacobsen, as the Bee City USA sponsor, and Anna Paul, Director of Administration, as the Bee City USA Liaison. Interested volunteers in this initiative should contact Anna Paul: apaul@vbhil.gov or 847-551-3000.

About Bee City USA

Bee City USA is an initiative of the Xerces Society or Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, with offices across the country.  Bee City USA’s mission is to galvanize communities to sustain pollinators by providing them with a healthy habitat, rich in a variety of native plants and free of insecticides.  Pollinators like bumblebees, sweat bees, mason bees, honeybees, butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, hummingbirds and many others are responsible for the reproduction of almost ninety percent of the world’s flowering plant species and one in every three bites of food we consume.

For more information about Bee City USA, visit beecityusa.org
For more information about the Xerces Society, visit xerces.org