SES student beekeeping group
A keen senior student Oliver started the beekeeping group by asking local beekeeper Jason Markham to come in and help a group of students build a barrel top bar hive and begin our school beekeeping project.
Now the group is thriving, seven students meet regularly with Jason on Tuesday afternoons. They have recycled old school hats to make bee hoods with fine mesh netting to protect themselves from being stung on the face when tending the hive.
We are very lucky at South End School to have two bee project pollinator mentors (Jason Markham and Lucia Zanmonti) that give up their time to teach the student beekeepers how to build a hive, attract a swarm of bees and how to check on the hive and take care of the bee colony.
barrel top bar hive
The top bar hive is an ancient beekeeping method that has been used for centuries it is experiencing a resurgence in recent years among natural beekeeping circles as it allows the bees to build a natural comb shape from scratch. This kind of hive is harder to scrape off the wax and spin out the honey so it is a great choice for beekeepers looking for pollinators for crops over honey production.