On December 6th, I went to the Queens Botanical Garden which was having a special winter solstice and tree lighting event. The event started with a tour of their garden with tour guide JoAnn; she is incredibly knowledgeable, lovely, and very helpful and attentive. We first saw A Drop in the Cleansing Biotope.
Click here for video..
After learning about the cleansing biotope, we stopped by the area of the garden that contained several herbs. The Herb Garden is a collection of woody, annual, and perennial plants that are grouped by use; such as medicinal, aromatic, and culinary. We were able to feel and smell the herbs to be able to lear
n even more about them. Something I learned was that during medieval Europe, it was very common for people to not bathe. Their reasons varied from it was immoral and could lead to promiscuous sex and also there was the belief that water was home to several diseases. So people would wear an herb necklace or rub themselves and/or clothing with herbs to be able to smell good.
We then moved on to look at the Bee Garden, which happened to be my favorite part. I’ve never done any research on bees so I found this garden much more interesting and educational. In this garden there is a collection of plants and trees that attract bees. This garden is 
the home of the Apis Mellifera, also known as the Italian Honeybees. JoAnn also told us that there was a day in which there was a lot of commotion at the bee garden and the workers of the garden realized that the bees were being attacked by another group of bees for their honey. A shortage of nectar-producing flowers is called a nectar dearth. When bees can’t find nectar they often try to steal it from other hives. This begins an aggressive behavior known as robbing. When bees are aggressive they release an alarm pheromone which is an odor that warns 
other bees of the danger. The alarm pheromone makes other honey bees aggressive, and more fighting means more pheromone is released which also means more bees join in the “fight”.
I then interviewed our tour guide JoAnn and asked her what 
she enjoys about the Botanical Garden and about working there. I also interviewed a mother and son. I spoke in spanish with the mother, basically asking her what was her favorite part of the garden. She said that her favorite part was the herb garden because she loves cooking with different herbs. Also that she found interesting and unexpected that the garden had herbs originally found in her country.
After the tour of the Botanical Garden, I went to see Santa, an acapella group called Rough Dozen perform several Christmas songs, and also stayed to look at the beautiful tree lighting held afterwards.
You can watch the songs I recorded here:
There are several reasons to visit the Queens Botanical Garden, you can plan a group event with family or friends, go on a date, go on a tour and simply enjoy nature, see what events they’re having, or even to take a couple selfies for Instagram. Whatever the reason is for why you decide to go, it’ll be an enjoyable and relaxing day.
filmsandfoodporn.wordpress.com 