Will Kratoska’s Eagle Scout project will be all the buzz at Shields Park in Seymour.

The member of Boy Scout Troop 529 plans to install a bee habitat that’s about 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide in the garden area in the middle of the park.

He asked for permission to do so during a Seymour Parks and Recreation Department board meeting Monday at city hall, and he also asked for some resources from the city.

After asking some questions about the project, the board unanimously voted to allow Kratoska to place the bee habitat and also approved to provide him with up to $250 to go toward materials.

That was done after Vice President Bethany Rust asked about the board helping the Scout with a donation. Board member Kendra Zumhingst made a motion, Art Juergens seconded and it passed.

When board President Monica Riley asked Kratoska if he plans to place the bee habitat in the spring, he said he wants to build it and install it by the end of February.

Parks Director Stacy Findley asked him if he needed help with concrete mix and a post.

“I shouldn’t need a whole lot of assistance,” Kratoska said. “It’s just the materials that I’ll maybe need a little hand on. It shouldn’t be a whole lot.”

Chad Keithley, program director for the parks department, said there are some water and electrical lines going through the garden area, so those will have to be located before any construction starts.

“I like it in the garden area because it would be fenced in,” Keithley said.

This will be the second bee habitat in a Seymour park. In the summer of 2021, one was placed at Westside Park after children helped make it during a Jackson County Public Library program.

The library worked in cooperation with Findley to get that accomplished, and she in turn worked with Charlotte Moss with Turning Point Domestic Violence Services, who had a group of teens add a butterfly garden, pollinator plants and a bench near the habitat.

So what is a bee habitat? It’s a box with walls with small holes that draws solitary bees that live in ledges, in the ground or in sticks and piles. They will go inside and make nests in the holes or spaces in between items like bamboo, sticks, straw and wood, and then they bring mud in to create a mud wall, lay their eggs and put in more mud.

M.J. Kratoska, Will’s father, said they got the idea of a bee habitat after seeing one along the People Trail in Columbus.

“We hiked that and saw that there. It’s a little more weatherproof,” M.J. said.

Findley said when she worked for the Columbus parks department, she was responsible for getting that bee habitat placed. She said it has chicken wire on the front, but plexiglass can be used, too, to keep people from taking things from the inside of the box.

Findley also told Will there is a bee habitat at Eagle Creek Park in Indianapolis, and blueprints are available if he’s interested in seeing those to help build his for Shields Park.

“I’m willing to help however you need,” she told Will.

Once the bee habitat is placed, Will said his only job will be to go check on it on a regular basis.