Tashjian Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center
The Tashjian Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center serves as a visitor center and hub for community education that is grounded in the world-renowned bee research of University of Minnesota Scientist Marla Spivak, Ph.D. Interactive displays use macro-photography of flowers and pollinators and exhibits offer insights into honey bees, wild bees, Monarch butterflies and other pollinators.
This building contains the Campbell Exhibit Hall, the McVay Learning Lab, Honey House, a working bee apiary, a covered picnic area and gardens filled with pollinator-friendly plantings. There is a water fountain and restrooms in this building along with beverage & snack items for sale.
New solar panels at the Bee Center!
The Arboretum added a new solar array to the roof of the Tashjian Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center in June 2024, thanks to an in-kind donation by Ziegler Energy Solutions. Ziegler Companies is a Bloomington-based family-owned company whose divisions focus on solar and agriculture equipment, to name a few, making it a great fit for this exciting contribution to the Farm at the Arb. Through this donation, the company hopes to highlight solar as a renewable energy source and promote sustainability practices to ideally reduce energy consumption and minimize Arboretum expenses for years to come. The Arboretum embraces important steps like this that we can take toward greater sustainability
Additional History & Building Details
Arboretum Foundation trustee Joe Tashjian, whose family played a lead role in funding and establishing the Bee and Pollinator Center, notes, "As a child, I can remember (mom) putting on one of her bee pins my father gave to her. Alice was an avid gardener. For us, bees were part of the landscape. The research by Marla Spivak and her team at the University of Minnesota led us to know this project has a strong scientific and educational underpinning." Tashjian describes the Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center as a unique place where family memories come together for him, and as a special tribute to his late parents Harry and Alice. Sandy Tanck, Manager of Interpretation at the Arboretum, led a University of Minnesota-wide team to plan visitor displays and exhibits.
The Arboretum’s Tashjian Bee & Pollinator Center, built in 2016, also won an AIA COTE Top Ten Award from the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment for sustainable design excellence — one of the industry’s best-known awards programs of its kind. Sustainable features include a metal roof, long-life Accoya wood cladding, radiant heating and cooling systems, a geothermal field and solar panels.
In addition to being sustainably built, the center educates all ages about the key role that pollinators play in our ecosystem, using learning spaces, an apiary, a honey house and pollinator gardens with interpretive signage.
Learn more about the building's architecture from MSR Design (PDF)
