Members of Eastern Indiana Beekeepers will host a hands-on interactive meeting about double queen hives on Feb. 18 in the Hayes Arboretum Nature Center, a preserved 330-acre forest in Richmond that provides nature and recreation related education to visitors. The Eastern Indiana Beekeepers are a group of beekeepers founded in Fort Wayne dedicated to helping bees survive and teaching the trade throughout Indiana. 

For Zachary Rife, co-president of the Gardening Together Club and junior, the Eastern Indiana Beekeepers’ mission aligns with his beliefs about the significance of beekeeping. 

He said, “(Beekeeping) is one of my personal passions; I’m a hobbyist, so I enjoy helping things grow and exploring new things. I’ve been gardening for four or five years now and I also have livestock, so I know firsthand that bees are important to ecosystems because they help support plant life through pollination.” 

Eastern Indiana Beekeepers addresses several issues Rife said are pivotal. Rife said student awareness remains critical in fighting the dangers which threaten bees in today’s society and in maintaining current food supplies and resources. 

According to the UN Environment Programme, bee populations have been declining globally due to several key factors, such as habitat loss, intensive farming practices and the excessive use of agro-chemicals such as pesticides. While most individuals realize the importance of bees in the roles of producing honey and pollinating livestock, the majority do not acknowledge the risks of the decreasing bee population. Experts at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations report one third of the world’s food production depends on bees, making their population decline of high concern. 

Aleeza Asad, a student in IB Environmental Science and junior, said youth must be educated on sustainability, and she personally felt more confident in her ability to make a difference after being taught in class.

“I believe that young people should have more knowledge and be taught about conservation issues and how to make a difference, and if we work together and to make an impact, we can create a lot of change,” Asad said. “I do believe I could definitely make a change in my community’s knowledge based on what I have learned (in class) because I have learned so much.” 

Asad said grasping the purpose of bees in everyday life is more critical than just skimming over an article. 

Asad said, “Understanding the bees might seem like a small issue, but it can really tell us how the world and the ecosystem near us exist. It also teaches us about the importance of biodiversity and the need for bees and what they can do for the world and for us.”

Similarly, biology teacher Ann Mayhew said if given the right amount of time and resources, she would modify her lessons to implement a bigger focus on sustainability and incorporate more information about the importance of bees on the environment. 

“I talk about the role of bees in an ecosystem, and we introduced human interactions and how they affect the environment negatively. Hopefully, my students will take that further then so that they’re at least a little bit aware of it,” Mayhew said. 

While the role of bees is discussed within the context of ecosystems, their decline and impact on agriculture or biodiversity are not focal points in the curriculum. Mayhew said it is imperative students are more passionate about such topics especially pertaining to bees and their involvement in the environment as a whole.