Green Corner
The Beekeeping Club has exciting news to share with you! For several months, the members of the Beekeeping Club, with the assistance of our club adviser Linda Safford and English instructor Jason BreMiller (Sustainability Education Coordinator), have been working with the administration to get a beehive on campus. Many drafts of the proposal were sent back to us, but we have finally been approved! In fact, our bees will be arriving on campus within the next few days! In addition to providing honey to our school in the future and extra pollination to the campus and surrounding areas, the beehive will be visited by classes as an educational tool. After much debate over the optimal location, our beehive will be placed between the dog park and the new faculty garden (on the left over the bridge to the Stadium). The hive will be fenced in, so it can’t be encountered by accident, or accessed without the company of experienced beekeepers.
Last weekend, Ms. Safford and I painted the hive a beautiful yellow color, and all the other gear will be arriving this week, so all we’re waiting on is the bees! Lots of beekeepers get their bees from big bee breeders in Georgia, but ours will be coming from Maine, because Ms. Safford and I think the Maine bees handle New England winters better than the Georgia bees (understandably).
Our bees will arrive in what is called a nucleus colony. It contains a queen bee with a bunch of worker bees, and they’re all already situated on five frames. This means they already have their honeycomb drawn, their eggs laid and some honey stored. The other option was to get a package of bees, which is just the queen bee and the worker bees in a mesh box. The advantage of the nucleus colony, although it is slightly more expensive, is that the bees already have a foundation set, so they can start collecting pollen and adapting to their new environment right away.
On the day that our package arrives, what we will have to do is take the five frames from the nucleus colony, and place them into an empty space in the permanent hive box. This is a very quick and simple process, but since it is the first campus beehive, it is very exciting and we would love for anyone who is interested to be a part of it. We don’t know exactly when our bees will be coming, but as soon as we do know, an email will be sent to everyone on the beekeeping club email list. If you would like to be on that list for any reason (to come see the installation, to join our weekly meetings on Wednesdays during lunch, to ask me questions or to express concerns) don’t hesitate to email me at oliponis@exeter.edu.