New Bee Club is all the buzz around campus

by NATHANIEL HOLBROOK

Staff Writer

UMW’s new Bee Club was officially recognized by the school at the end of October. The club is in its early stages and is looking to gather more members to teach people about bees as well as try to make the campus bee-friendly.

The Bee Club aims to respond to the decreasing population of pollinators such as bees by building more habitats for bees on campus.

“As many have heard, there has been a huge decrease in the bee population over the past couple of years,” said Curtis Kasiski, president of Bee Club. “Our goal as a club is to increase the amount of available habitats for native pollinators on campus, as well as constructing and maintaining an apiary for honey bees.”

According to Kasiski, Bee Club is independent of other sustainability clubs on campus but is affiliated with the Presidential Council of Sustainability.  
“The PCS is a group of students, normally club leaders, and faculty that work to make UMW more sustainable,” he said.

One of the major goals of the club and the PCS is to become a certified bee-friendly college campus, which means to build sustainable habitats for pollinators.

“One of the goals of the PCS that is to be achieved through the Bee Club is the bee campus USA certification,” Kasiski said.
Danielle Cross, the vice president of the Bee Club, is also passionate about spreading awareness of the bees and hopes to get more students active in helping the bees.

“We as UMW students have the ability and drive to start contributing to the protection of pollinator species and Bee Club is a great way to get that ball rolling in terms of not only action but also education.”
Cross has experience with taking care of bees and apiaries, and that experience led her to want to join the UMW Bee Club.

“I am a transfer student from Sweet Briar College and there I joined their upstart of a Bee Club and helped take care of their apiary,” she said “I fell in love with taking care of the bees and watching the hives grow and produce. Bees are such wonderful insects and they deserve to have more people stand up and contribute to their conservation.”

“I am hopeful that the club will spark a love and interest of bees in more people and that it will lead to a growing drive in the UMW community to learn about and protect bees and other native pollinators,” Cross added.