About Us

At age 10, Emily Huffstetler and her family began raising mason bees to help pollinate their backyard apricot trees. That early experience grew into Build for Bees, her 2018 Girl Scout Gold Award project focused on bee conservation education.

​

In 2021, Build for Bees became a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting bees through education and habitat restoration.

​

Today, Build for Bees helps people of all ages discover the diversity, importance and wonder of bees through accessible, hands-on education. Our primary program is our free, volunteer-led mason bee house workshop, where participants learn about bee diversity, pollination and the threats bees face before building a mason bee house of their own.

​

Since 2018, we have reached more than 1,000 participants at schools, nursing homes, festivals and community events. We also create free printable guides so others can host mason bee house workshops in their own communities.

​

Build for Bees supports the next generation of conservation leaders through our Bee Education Internship and develops youth programs like “A Bee C’s,” a Girl Scout patch created with Girl Scouts of the Southern Appalachians to help girls learn about native bees, nesting and pollinator conservation.

​

Emily has shared this work through her TEDx talk, The Interdependence of Bees, Flowers and Humankind, and her exemplary senior thesis, Crosspollination: Writing, Design, and Spanish Translation in Children’s Picture Books for Bee Education. She is a Certified Nonprofit Professional and holds a Master of Science in Conservation Education from Mississippi State University.​