When warm weather finally arrives in Central New York, Christopher Hansen 鈥�25 will be ready to suit up for close encounters with honeybees. Hansen is president of the Beekeeping Club at 麻花影视, a recognized student organization that he founded in 2023 to help manage the University鈥檚 honeybee hives on South Campus. 鈥淚 decided to create the club and try to get more people to join and help teach them about beekeeping,鈥� says Hansen, a chemical engineering major in the . 鈥淭his spring I鈥檓 hoping to get a lot more people to go out and suit up with me.鈥�
Hansen took up beekeeping more than a decade ago, joining his father and grandfather managing about 20 hives downstate in Orange County. 鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely a unique hobby, and honey production is really cool,鈥� he says, likening it to vegetable gardening. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e building up a living colony to produce something to harvest. You have a field of workers in your backyard, and you have to work with them because you don鈥檛 want to take too much of their food and want to make sure they鈥檙e happy and doing well. It鈥檚 like having your own factory in the backyard.鈥�
Promoting Pollinators and Pollination
Chris Hansen 鈥�25 is president of the Beekeeping Club at 麻花影视. He鈥檚 holding a smoker, which is used to calm the bees and draw them into the hive box, a brush and a tool for lifting the frames out of the hive box.
Public health professor Lisa Olson-Gugerty and professor Mary Kiernan of the introduced honeybees to the South Campus landscape in spring 2020. Supported by a College as a Lab for Sustainability grant, they set up six hives that became home to over 300,000 honeybees. Since then, the bees鈥� honey has been harvested in the summer and early fall, to be bottled and sold on campus. The hives are also part of the University鈥檚 initiative as an affiliate of the , a nationwide organization of college and university campuses dedicated to conserving pollinators.
Hansen examines a frame from a hive box on South Campus. He鈥檚 checking the bees for healthy activity and says once the weather warms the queen will start laying eggs.
鈥淔rom an academic standpoint, maintaining hives can provide students with hands-on learning experiences related to ecology, biology, environmental science and sustainability,鈥� says Olson-Gugerty, who serves as faculty advisor to the Beekeeping Club. 鈥淚t allows students to observe pollination, understand the roles of bees in biodiversity and explore sustainable agricultural practices.鈥�
In recent years, the University has enhanced its sustainability management practices, creating native pollinator habitats with native plant species, minimizing the use of pesticides and establishing a Pollinator Garden as part of Pete鈥檚 Giving Garden on South Campus. 鈥淏ees play a crucial role in local ecosystems by pollinating plants, which enhances biodiversity and contributes to a healthier campus environment,鈥� Olson-Gugerty says. 鈥淭hey also serve as bioindicators, helping monitor environmental health and the effects of climate change.鈥�
A Relaxing Routine
Worker bees are females that don鈥檛 reproduce, but they gather nectar and pollen, maintain the hive and care for the broods.
When Hansen learned about the South Campus colony, he reached out to Olson-Gugerty, letting her know he had experience beekeeping and was interested in helping. In April, in collaboration with other student organizations, the club plans to host a wildflower seed-paper-making event. It鈥檚 also holding information sessions and readying a schedule for hive visits.
Bees move among the frames as they re-enter the hive box. Hansen says bees can identify their hive boxes by color, and beekeepers use different colors to distinguish between brood frames and honey frames.
For Hansen, the entire process is fascinating鈥攆rom managing the population of the hives to ensuring the queen bee is laying eggs to seeing worker bees that have been gathering pollen (their protein source) and nectar. 鈥淭hey have these little bags in their legs that they store the pollen on, so when they鈥檙e going flower to flower, some will fall out and pollinate the plants they visit,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou can see them fly back into the hives, and they have bright yellow and orange legs because they鈥檙e filled up from all the pollen they鈥檝e been collecting.鈥�
While occasional bee stings happen, Hansen enjoys the methodical routine associated with beekeeping. 鈥淥nce you get over the fact that you got thousands of bees flying around you, it鈥檚 really relaxing,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have to think too much and there鈥檚 minimal strategy. You kind of tuck your mind away and just go to work.鈥�
