Have you heard the buzz?
The Carolina Beekeeping Club allows students to learn about sustainability and protecting honeybees.
Press the play button above to watch the video
Carolina’s campus is filled with endless plants, bushes and trees kept beautiful by Carolina’s busiest pollinators — bees.
“For me, bees remind me of the wonder that it is to be alive, which is a big statement to make,” said Ben Diasio, junior and vice president of the Carolina Beekeeping Club. “It really helps me connect with my sort of sense of wonder and nature.”
The Carolina Beekeeping Club is a student-led organization hoping to inspire students through the world of honeybees. Students learn how to protect the environment, focus on sustainability and see how pollinators support plants. Since 2016, the club’s goal has been to educate the Carolina community about beekeeping.
“Our beekeeping club beehives are important to have on our campus as I think it makes UNC one of the most beautiful campuses in the country,” said Nathan Halsey, junior and president of the club. “Bees help pollinate different trees and flowers around campus, helping with biodiversity. They pollinate areas of campus all the way from the Dean Dome to Carolina North to Carrboro. Bees have a huge impact, even though you might not see them daily.”
Any undergraduate or graduate students can join the club and work at the beehives, located at Battle Grove.
“Battle Grove is nice because it’s a place where the University has a long-dedicated effort around sustainability, and it’s now become a collective area where lots of different things are going on. It’s designated as a bird habitat, and now it has wildly successful beehives from the beekeeping club,” said Michael Piehler, director of the Institute for the Environment and Carolina Beekeeping Club faculty adviser. “It really stands out as a sustainability landmark for the University.”
Students in the club take care of the inner hive, check on the queen bee to make sure she’s healthy and laying eggs, ensure pests and pathogens aren’t affecting the bees and provide a healthy environment to pollinate flowers on campus.
“Taking care of bees involves sort of being a detective. You need to see what the state of the bees is currently,” said Diasio. “Do they need more food? Are they low on nectar? Should you feed them sugar water? It’s like being a landlord and their doctor rolled into one.”
Students also lead or attend hive tours, paint pollinator boxes around campus with bee facts, put plants around campus for honeybees to pollinate, harvest honey and protect and inspire people about honeybees and other pollinators.
“Any club at Carolina is important because it gives students a perspective on the world they’re entering after getting their education. The Carolina Beekeeping Club is a great example of that — they’re taking a challenge that sits within a broader suite of opportunities around sustainability, and they’re making it their own,” said Piehler.
This past summer, the club harvested over 200 pounds of honey — 500 jars — in their first ever harvest for the club. The club plans to sell the jars to buy food for the Carolina Cupboard pantry, a student-run food pantry on campus, as part of the new “Honey for Hunger” initiative focusing on combatting food insecurity.
Bees pollinate one-third of all the food people eat. “Having them is great for the environment and is a great example of how the environment brings value to people,” said Piehler.
“Honeybees have taught me about the meaning of life. They rely on each other; one bee can’t survive by themselves in a beehive. It’s taught me that collective action community and everybody pitching in really can make a difference in the world,” said Halsey.
