There is a new buzz on campus, and it’s coming from the Association of Boston University Beekeepers and Friends.
The club, whose approval is still pending, hopes to promote healthy bee populations to pollinate Boston gardens and restore the ecosystem, according to their Facebook group.
Group members also hope to debunk the popular misconception that bees are aggressive, said College of Arts and Sciences freshman and club treasurer Lydia Glenn.
Glenn said honeybees are only aggressive when someone is a few feet directly in front of their hive. During the colder months, however, bees seldom leave their hives and may become increasingly more agitated.
College of Engineering freshman and club president Christopher Hall said in an email that the club is interested in the care and keeping of bees facing difficult circumstances in the wild.
‘Bees are responsible for about one-third of the U.S. food supply, but due to a mix of reasons, bee populations have dropped dramatically,’ Hall said. ‘We hope this club can create public interest and get more people involved in this rewarding hobby, and get some delicious honey in the process.’
Hall said the idea for the club came from his interest in bees after writing about them for his English class during his senior year of high school. At freshman orientation last summer, Hall said he met Glenn, who shared his interest. The two began collaborating to start a club.
‘In the fall, we both had joined the Organic Gardening Club and mentioned the idea of a beekeeping club at BU,’ he said. ‘Many members were interested in them and it caused a lot of excitement among OGC.’
With the help of OGC, the students then began planning for the future of their own club.
‘Thanks to the support we received from OGC, we were able to get people together and turn this idea into a reality,’ Hall said.
The club’s inception was also largely made possible with the help of club advisor and assistant professor Donald Derosa.
‘[Derosa] has been very supportive, and we have begun to talk with him about long-term possibilities, including how we can use the hive as a teaching tool for students at BU, and maybe someday have a display hive in the School of Education,’ Glenn said.
As of now, the club has ten members, but more students have begun to show an interest in joining, Hall said. So far, the group has had two meetings. They also took a trip to visit beekeeper Nancy Mangion in Woburn.
Mangion owns and operates the ‘Beekeepers’ Warehouse,’ which offers beekeeping classes and even sells packages of bees and hive bodies so amateurs can begin their own beekeeping centers.
The group is excited to learn about bees, and to teach the community about sustainability, Glenn said. They hope to receive funding and approval by April.
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