Why every school needs a beehive (or three

Alison Gates Assistant Coordinator STEAM, Acting Head of Agriculture Department

A Abstract

Barker has re-established beehives on campus which support learning and teaching in Agriculture, Science and STEAM. During COVID lockdowns Bee Club was a place of social connection online and it has grown even larger in 2022. The experience of student interest in bees is not unique to Barker and there is a growing literature on the contributions to learning in academic disciplines as well as sustainability education. In this article the nature of the Barker apiary is outlined with suggestions of how it has been have implemented it effectively across the school.

Key Terms Apiculture Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of honeybee colonies by humans in humanmade hives. Most such bees are honey bees in the genus Apis, but other honey-producing bees can also be domesticated.

S STEAM STEAM is an approach to learning that recognises the interdisciplinary nature of learning through Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics. Barker embraces STEAM as a way of constructing authentic learning experiences, guiding student inquiry, dialogue and developing collaboration and critical thinking skills.

Introduction

There is increasing public realisation about the global importance of bees and about the factors that are contributing to their decline. Coverage in the popular press of the varroa mite incursion through the Port of Newcastle during 2022 has served to contribute to a growing interest. Even before the varroa mite, between the years 2006 and 2016 Australia lost over one hundred thousand commercial bee hives or around 20% of honey-producing hives (Clarke & Le Feuvre, 2021). Of particular concern is that around 65% of Australia’s agricultural crops require bee and insect pollination to survive. It’s little wonder then, with the strength of the Agriculture program at the school, that Barker’s interest in bees is buzzing. But there is a lot more to the humble bumble than agriculture and, in fact, there is

a resurgence of beehives in schools around the country regardless whether those schools offer Agriculture or not. In fact, in the USA through the Ashland Apiary Project, there is an evidenced based pedagogic approach to sustainability education called “apiary-based learning” (King, 2013). In sharing the Barker journey with beekeeping, this article seeks to outline why bees have an important place in so many education settings and then to share our Barker journey with re-establishing hives on campus with a hope of inspiring other schools to do the same.

The global decline is bees is a story that Barker students are familiar with. The native stingless beehives that are dotted around the campus and overseen by Mr Giltrap (Head of Senior School) provide a context for even Barker’s youngest learners to understand how humans can create habitats for pollinators. Since 2013 Australian honey imports have exceeded export volumes (Clarke & Le Feuvre, 2021) which may come as a surprise, as Australian’s bee populations are widely proclaimed as the healthiest in the world. The contribution of backyard beekeepers is very difficult to track and measure but there is anecdotal evidence that they might be starting to significantly boost domestic production. Barker’s journey into beekeeping, whilst led by the Agriculture team, has drawn in many students who are not studying Agriculture. Perhaps this is because students love that backyard beekeeping can improve pollination and honey production and they see the capacity for individual action to make a big difference. There is an emerging body evidence to say that bees are faring better in urban areas than they are in agricultural regions leading to the so-called urban renaissance in apiculture (Askham, 2013) and this may be another reason that beekeeping is something that interests today’s students.

The Barker Bee Journey Barker has had a long history of raising and inspiring apiarists. A score of beekeeper's report that they learned their craft at “Barker Bee Club”. It’s been a part of Barker’s connection with the community over many years. My own mother remembers a bee swarm at her childhood home in Pymble and tells the story that her parents called a Barker staff member, Mr Bradshaw, who came enthusiastically and rehomed the swarm to the Barker Apiary. Bees have been variously located around the school, initially by the railway line on College Crescent and later at the Agriculture Plots on The Avenue. In the context of concerns about student wellbeing and risk assessment, and increasing understanding and prevalence of anaphylaxis, beekeeping fell out of favour and the Bee Club was eventually disbanded.

In 2018, as part of a review of a Year 10 Agriculture Unit on “Alternative Enterprises”, the Agriculture Team started to develop lessons that focussed on bees, their biology and husbandry. Relying on the personal hives of an agriculture teacher, bees were brought to school for a day at a time in carefully sealed observation frames that could be transported between classrooms and students responded with curiosity and enthusiasm. Students would watch the bees working the brood frames, feeding larvae, cleaning, preening and so on. The engagement continued as we realised the breadth of connections with the Agriculture syllabus. Particularly the rise of the Australian invented flow hive and its global reach in terms of agricultural technology (Grekov et al., 2021).

This was a great way to start because the risk assessment was very low risk with the bees safely contained in a sealed observation hive. But it was a lot of physical effort to be opening hives at home in the early morning in order to load them into the single frames, transport them to school and then return them into their hives after a long day. A flow hive was purchased by the school and in 2019 full flow frames from the teacher’s hives were able to be brought onto campus and complete a “flow harvest” in the classroom in real time without the bees. Undeniably wonderful learning, but a lot of work.

The next step came on the back of an observation within the Agriculture faculty that many schools are starting to return to having hives on school grounds. Had the risks changed or was there a changing attitude to how risks are managed? Barker staff conducted a careful risk assessment process and consulted widely across the school in terms of locations, mitigations and safety. Risks include stings (and allergic reactions), fire and smoke related injuries and burns as well as a number of risks associated with manual handling. Eventually a proposal was sent to the Head of School for consideration and the re-establishment of the hives was approved.

The Barker apiary now stands in a fenced garden adjacent to the Agriculture Plot or Clarke Road. The apiary was first established in 2021 with two hives, a Flow hive and a Langstroth hive each being developed from a nuc that we purchased from a beekeeping supplier. This combination of two hives, using two different technologies, has been highly beneficial. Student learning experiences are all the richer for the comparison between the hives, and having a second hive to hand, is an incredibly important asset for solving husbandry issues. The apiary has grown as swarms that have occurred on school grounds have been captured.

Implementation: The Barker Bee Programs So, how are the hives being used? The apiary is now serving learning and teaching within the school in a variety of settings and it is fair to say that this has exceeded original expectations. The experiences at Barker are wholeheartedly consistent with the existing research that states, “bees are a viable means with which to advance STEAM education for learners of all ages, backgrounds, origins, nationalities, colours, races, and interests.” (Schmitt et al, 2021, p.179). The hives have added value in STEAM education across a wide range of settings. Some key programs include:

1. A Agriculture classroom programs. Bees continue to be an important part of the Agriculture program especially in the Year 10 Alternative Enterprises unit. It is much easier to put bees into observation hives and bring them up to classrooms and it is realistic and achievable to take students to observe a flow hive harvest in situ. Whilst we have a risk assessment that permits students to be involved in bee keeping, this is not for class sized groups but for much smaller groups. COVID slowed down some plans to do small group bee keeping however there has been opportunity to do many classroom practical activities including, harvesting, processing frames and comb, wax melting and purification, hive and frame construction, candle and lip balm making and honey tasting. Agriculture classes are also participating in a citizen

science project to perform pollinator counts within the school and contribute our results to a broader project. 2. W World Bee Day. In 2022 Barker held its first major World Bee Day event where

Agriculture staff and the Bee club students set up tables in the Science Quadrangle and gave away crumpets with Barker Honey, honey comb making and extraction demonstrations as well as some bee craft. We played music by the Bee Gees (very loudly!) and were thrilled with the number of students that came to check it out.

This was a really fun lunchtime with a great vibe and we are really looking forward to the next iteration. 3. B Bee Club. Bee Club meets weekly during a school lunch time. Students began by undertaking an online beekeeping course and many students use this for their Duke of Edinburgh Skill. The limitations of lunch time is that there is not real time for student beekeeping and this is where we plan to start small group beekeeping experiences. The plans are for this to do after school incursions where students can sign up to do after school beekeeping. Barker has bee suits and beekeeping gear ready to go but the consistent rain and inclement weather has seen a number of false starts. 4. K K-12 Learning activities. Barker STEAM leaders have run incursions with various age groups in the Junior School and have discussed honey and pollination and done honey tasting. Honeycombs and hive structures have added to mathematical inquiries on complex geometry and patterns in nature. It is fantastic to see how accessible complex biological content can be made for Barker’s youngest learners.

Queen spotting activities as well as pollinator hunts and observation frame lessons are a particular favourite in the Junior School. 5 5. H Hive Products: A social enterprise at Barker Spring Fair. In an ideal world, Barker

Bee Club would have loved to have had a table of honey for sale at Spring Fair. But the La Nina season has meant that our harvest has not been what was hoped. Bee

Club and Agriculture students have processed honey but there was insufficient volume for the 2022 Spring Fair. However, value-added hive products such as wax candles and lip balm are both fun to make and a rich learning experience in developing enterprise skills including calculating costs and profits and creating a manufacturing process to maintain consistent standards. This has been done in

Agriculture classes for a few years now and it was gratifying to be able to have products for market at the Spring Fair. 6. B Bee Science: Authentic Research Experiences. Perhaps most surprising has been the number of students who have come through Bee Club and Agriculture to the new Science Extension course asking to do projects relating to bees and bee products. We have had several honey related projects and in 2023 two students have proposed a project investigating the properties of bee venom and another project on the distribution of pollen within the hives.

A word of warning It would be remiss to not temper the story with a word of caution. European honeybees, whilst often painted as pollination superheroes, also have the propensity to go rogue. Like the vast majority of Australia’s key agricultural species, European honeybees are not native and left to their own devices they rapidly become environmental villains. Some interesting research has been done to consider how to weigh their environmental benefit against environmental cost (Pyke, 1999).

The tendency for bees to swarm, often during spring, is a natural part of the cycle of a hive and it is the responsibility of the beekeeper to manage this. Swarms can be readily anticipated and prevented in the hive with regular inspections paying careful attention to the comb and resources (Seeley et al., 2006). During a swarm the bees leave the hive with their queen and attempt to set up a new hive. We have been fortunate to catch a number of swarms from outside Barker to add to our apiary, however left to their own devices, many swarms find their way into bushland where they can wreak a particular kind of havoc on native fauna. Honeybees compete with vertebrate fauna for nesting sites and habitat (Oldroyd et al., 1994).

The solution is relatively simple: swarm prevention and management techniques need to be a priority of beekeeping education along with bee pest and disease identification. Many of the other lessons can come with time and experience but these are crucial as a school apiary and beekeeping education program is established.

Conclusion

Beekeeping is continuing to bring joy to the Barker community and the journey to reestablish an apiary on the school grounds has led to learning and curriculum innovation, and simultaneously a stronger connection to our roots in the long tradition of the Barker Bee Club. It is a popular connection point for students and a hobby that many can continue into their life beyond school. It enriches students’ (and staff) understanding of complex environmental problems and fascinating entomological research. It has an important role to play in sustainability education within our school setting and beyond. Above all, Barker Bee Club provides a co-curricular environment that is inclusive, fun and accessible and offering another way for students to connect and learn together on campus.

References

Alton, K., & Ratnieks, F. (2022). Can Beekeeping Improve Mental Wellbeing during Times of Crisis? Bee World, 99(2), 40-43. Askham, B. (2013). Urban buzz. Sanctuary: Modern Green Homes, (25), 76-79. Collins, D. (2019). Sustainability: Newcastle Grammar School's rooftop gardens. Geography Bulletin, 51(1), 48-50. Clarke, M. & Le Feuvre, D. (2021). Size and scope of the Australian honey bee and pollination industry–a snapshot. AgriFutures Honey Bee and Pollination.

Grekov, A. N., Grekova, N. S., Solomakhin, M. A., Lykhin, D. A., & Levina, M. V. (2021, November). Increasing efficiency of honey extracting through innovative technology as exemplified by a small agricultural producer. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 845, No. 1, p. 012088). IOP Publishing. Ibrahim, K. H., Abba, M. A. S., Margret, K. C. O., Ogechi, I. V., & Chinenye, A. V. (2021). Apiculture (Beekeeping), an Easy Economic Venture Irrespective of Age, Gender, Religion and Profession. International Journal of Applied Agricultural Sciences, 7(4), 169. King, R. (2013). Beekeeping as experiential: the Ashland Apiary Project. Journal of Sustainability Education, 5. Oldroyd, B. P., Lawler, S. H., & Crozier, R. H. (1994). Do feral honey bees (Apis mellifera) and regent parrots (Polytelis anthopeplus) compete for nest sites?. Australian Journal of Ecology, 19(4), 444-450. Pyke, G. (1999). The introduced Honeybee Apis mellifera and the Precautionary Principle: Reducing the conflict. Australian Zoologist, 31(1), 181-186. Schmitt, T., Demary, K., & Wilson-Rich, N. (2021). Urban Beekeeping as a Tool for STEAM Education. In Teaching and Learning in Urban Agricultural Community Contexts (pp. 179-208). Springer, Cham. Seeley, T. D., Visscher, P. K., & Passino, K. M. (2006). Group Decision Making in Honey Bee Swarms: When 10,000 bees go house hunting, how do they cooperatively choose their new nesting site?. American scientist, 94(3), 220-229.