Anthony Freeman (Beekeeper)
Anthony Freeman is passionate about bees, pollinators in general and has a great love of nature. He also has a great love of his home location using his local knowledge to inform people on his walk-about tours about the local/social history of Oliver Bond, Watling Street, etc, located in the surrounding area of The Liberties and all that entails.
He works as part of the Liberties Community Projects (LCP) as Social Enterprise Operational Manager.’ I got great support with the LCP especially the support from Austin (Austin Campbell, CEO of LCP)’ . When the opportunity arrived for Anthony to create a garden space with bee hives on a location on Watling Street he took the chance. The land for the project came via the Digital Hub. Anthony took on the garden area nearly five years ago creating the space and plants and a safe location for the bee colonies. The garden is also home to some of Anthony’s art and sculptors. His knowledge on bees is self-educated from books and the internet. He sees himself as privileged to work and help naturalise people to bees and nature in general in the area. He runs a beginner’s course in beekeeping (he designed the bee classes himself) facilitating small groups at a time and from ages six to eighteen and the more mature participant.
He started off with two hives on location in Adam and Eve’s church and another two in the garden location (called Leo Freeman’s Meadow after his late Grandfather). These were successful and with great support from LCP came up with a plan to expand the hive count to sixty hives over thirteen locations. All went well until the bad weather conditions experienced in 2024 led to the destruction of some thirty hives and relocation of hives to new positions around Dublin. He is open to companies with office buildings in Dublin to come on board with the pollinator support and also gives talks to businesses regarding bees and awareness of their importance. His care for the bees is laudable even down to using all honey created in the hives fed back directly to the bees to keep them healthy and fed over the winter months. A hive colony will consume around 120 lbs annually according to Anthony. This policy may change later down the line but at the moment he is not considering bee products from the hives.
Along with the inclusion of Anthony’s art and sculptors in the Leo Freeman Meadow there is a sense of calm retreat in the garden. There is a great sense of calm determination in Anthony to see this peaceful location a joyous and educational local nature reserve for the bees, pollinators and an opportunity for communities to get back in step with nature.
