By Lann Nguyen, March 4, 2024
Cal Poly Pomona’s Apiary program is designed to train California’s future beekeepers. Utilizing the “learn by doing” approach, students are learning to raise bees, pollination patterns and how to use honey and beeswax to create soaps and candles in order to market their honey.
Bees are facing a population loss due to human activity and climate change according to fairplant.org. To combat this decline, Building 34, previously known as the meat processing lab, is now the honey lab where student worker Michelle Baggett, plant science student, leads the team taking honey from hive to bottle. Along with other students like James Zeiter, plant science student, the hands-on process is completed entirely by students.
The program provides the opportunity for students to learn everything there is to know about beekeeping. The candles and soaps are an extra product that would help a beekeeper earn more income in a different way to utilize beekeeping for other than just populating crops.
Bees are kept at the back of M lot and some in Spadra Farm in Langstroth hives that are vertically modular beehives historically used to house bees. Honey is available seasonally about twice a year and it makes up a 55-gallon drum.
The process begins with the honeybees pollinating the honey and placing it on the wafers which are placed into a honey extractor to separate the honey from the wax through a fast-spinning circular process.
“Bringing awareness about bees is important because they are going extinct, so we try to get more people involved with beekeeping by packaging and giving out honey,” said Zeiter.
Italian honey bees, known as “robbers,” due to their reputation as lazy bees, prefer to take already made honey over trying to forage it for themselves. The student workers put out the parts used to bottle the honey, soaps and candles that are dirty with honey residue and the bees forage from it, collecting the honey and wax and reuse it. This is so the students don’t have to put the leftovers down the sink. Instead, it becomes a cycle where the students help the bees, and the bees carry out their natural process.
This process is especially helpful during colder weather and rainy days when the bees are not as active. They’re not able to forage for themselves and this helps them supplement what they do by providing another source of nutrients.
“The main goal of what we do is to keep a healthy hive so that we can help the ag industry with pollinating large crops like citrus, almonds and avocados which really need bees to pollinate,” said Baggett. “So, by keeping a healthy bee population we can manage bees that are docile and easy to work with. Then we transport them and take them where they’re needed to help them produce enough food .”
Frames made of plastic and wood are used to collect the honey, and afterward the frames are placed in a wax melter machine that melts the beeswax down and subdivides it by the pound. The wax is then mixed with the coconut oil in crockpots and dispersed into either the jars or the molds. It is made up of beeswax, coconut oil and essential oils and some are dyed if any colors are added.
The honey goes through a clarification process where it’s put through a cheesecloth which filters out all impurities and the leftovers go back into the frame. The goal is to not destroy too much of the honeycomb because the bees will rebuild from what’s there.
During the bottling process the room is maintained at 90 F but sometimes the door is left open, and students will drop the temperature down to 80 F, but it always stays warm, which helps the honey flow for bottling, and keeps it from crystallizing.
The wax melter machine utilizes a centrifuge, which is a powerful force that pushes the honey out of the frame and into the sides of the machine. The honey falls to the bottom into a metal pan that is slightly angled which leads to the other side of the machine. During this transfer of honey, a sieve process takes place where the machine tracks some of the wax comb, so the honey is more clarified upon passing through the sifter. After this initial process it goes in a bucket for bottling and packaging.
Baggett took over the Apiary operations in the honey lab as a student worker after Mark Haag, former lecturer in the Department of Animal and Veterinary Science, retired. Haag previously ran the Apiary program and laid the foundation for Anna Soper, associate professor of plant science, to take over the department as bee science program director.
“Beekeeping from a teaching perspective is a really good way to show hands-on learning,” said Soper. “The students are beekeeping every day, handling the hive frames, the honey, making candles and going through the process. I think from that side of it, it’s really exciting in other ways. Bee conservation and making people passionate about bees is vital because we need bees to pollinate many of California’s crops, which is about one third of the human diet. Getting the students excited about caring about bees and conserving bees is also another way that I think the program is useful for our students.”
The soaps, candles and bottle honey the students prepare are sold at the Los Angeles County Fair every summer.
There’s a learning process according to Baggett. They do research and development before selling products. Since perfecting their candle and soap recipes, a batch of them is given to people to try them. Upon receiving feedback changes will be made prior to introducing it to the table. The hot honey went through a human trial where students tried it and decided it was good in taste and quality.
“The education and outreach of getting our students out in front of the public, selling honey or candles gives them the opportunity to talk about bees and what we do,” said Soper. “Supporting local and buying local, I think that the communication skill is something we need to be teaching our students more and that’s something the Apiary program provides. That’s why I love this class so much because not only do they sit and do things and touch the bees and make the end products, but they also sell them and that’s like a huge skill set for anyone.”
The first five to six weeks students must undergo training in safety procedures for handling bees. They have to wear bee suits that are always white and accompanied by long sleeve shirts underneath and a thick denim jacket for added protection. Mobility gets better with prolonged wear and once proper safety attire is attained students also go over what not to wear in order to stay safe such as dark colors. The classes are open to any student interested regardless of their area of study.
Primarily the beekeeping classes are aimed toward those who see a future in beekeeping, but there are several students who participate as hobbyists. Other skills that are taught include learning to talk to the public and engaging other students in the importance of beekeeping.
“I saw a TED Talk on bees by Marla Spivak,” said Soper. “She said there’s something that just draws people into their world because they are so interesting, and I think if this is our aspect of agriculture that can draw people in then we can get people really excited. We can start to have bigger conversations about the use of pesticides, for instance. This is why we want to talk about our bees and our need for natural pollination.”
Apiary Program Coordinator Sean McLaughlin runs his own Apiary business called Oak Glen Apiaries that he started after graduating from CPP with his masters in 2021, with his business partner, fellow alumnus Mark Nakatsui.
“We’d like to have the classes come out and take a tour of our Apiary and our production to get some more hands-on experience with some of the process of managing colonies and extracting the honey,” said McLaughlin.
Students prioritize bee maintenance over producing honey for CPP’s Farm Store. The honey available at the store is sourced from Temecula due to high demand. Students focus on small batches for teaching purposes rather than meeting the store’s demand, aiming to enhance marketing and communication skills .
Natural control methods are the focus of this program in exploring alternative methods to pest management instead of spraying pesticides first. By utilizing bees to naturally pollinate plants the process of growing crops can be more easily streamlined without toxic chemicals.
“I see bees as little ambassadors of the ag world,” said Soper .
Pop-up shops will be on campus where honey will be available for purchase as well as handmade soaps and candles. The next two scheduled will be Wednesday, March 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in front of Building 2 and Thursday, March 28 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the University Quad.
To learn more about the Apiary program visit its website.
Feature image courtesy of Lann Nguyen.