At the beginning of my freshman year, I, like many other freshmen, spent a hot summer afternoon on Nickerson Field scouring the crowds of BU’s biggest gathering of student organizations, Splash, for clubs that interested me. Amid the sea of Greek life, club sports, religious and cultural groups and much, much more, I stumbled upon the BU Beekeepers, a club dedicated to— you guessed it— beekeeping. It stood out to me instantly because I had never heard of a beekeeping club at BU, and my curiosity paired with my love of bees drove me to sign up for their mailing list and begin attending meetings.
Now, at the end of my first semester, I feel the BU Beekeepers are criminally underrated. Whenever I mention that I’m part of the club to people, they’re always surprised to hear it even exists. So I decided to sit down for an interview with the BU Beekeeper’s president, senior Rebecca Hyatt, in hopes of hearing more about the club’s goals and spreading the word of its existence to other students interested in a unique take on sustainability.
Q: How did you find the BU Beekeepers Club?
A: When I was a freshman, I actually just joined so many clubs, just whatever seemed cool, and beekeeping looked really cute, honestly. I’m a senior now, so over the years, I started dropping clubs I realized maybe I wasn’t super interested in, and beekeeping always just seemed super cool to me. I was able to get pretty involved in it. I was secretary in the spring semester of my freshman year because someone studied abroad, so I was able to get involved early, and it just seemed like a very unique thing to do in college… And no one believes we actually have bees, so it’s always fun to tell people that.
Q: Why did you decide to run for president instead of just sticking with the secretary?
A: Well the three other officers were all graduating, so that was pretty influential. But also, when I was just the secretary, I think things were going well, but I wanted to be president so that I could try to ramp up our club’s activity and expand the things that we do in more of a leadership role.
Q: What sort of ambitions did you have for the club? I only joined it this year so I don’t know what it was like before you became president.
A: One of the big things was that I wanted to have meetings more frequently, which is pretty simple. But also, for beekeeping and having honeybees, it’s very much a spring activity. So even if we had— I’m sure you know, but we don’t have honeybees right now— but if we had them in the fall, there’s not that much we could do with them. I wanted us to have something to do and enjoy in the fall, so I decided that we would get solitary bees, and I’m pretty proud and happy that we worked on that over the summer and had them installed in the fall.
I’m just glad that at the very least we’re able to show our club members that and get people outside to see what we have even though they’re not honeybees. They also do like 90% of the pollination that bees do… I mean, they don’t live super long, but it’s more of an eco-friendly thing than honeybees would be.
Q: Do you think the club is really important environmentally?
A: In our statement of purpose for our club, we are focused on sustainability and promoting it on campus. I think people who are interested in beekeeping naturally are pretty passionate about environmentalism. I guess having honeybees is an environmental thing because they pollinate, so that’s good, and that’s a good feeling to contribute to that. But also, in general, I’m hoping that we can— outside of beekeeping— help out with sustainability, like cleaning up trash and partnering with other clubs. I will say we haven’t yet, which is kind of sad, but kind of a hope for the future, I guess.
Q: On a more general note, since this is such a niche interest and yet there’s a club for it, what do you feel like that says about BU’s student activities?
A: I think that’s a really good question because when I first found beekeeping as well, I thought like, “This is so niche, all of these people are like professional beekeepers, how can I be a part of this?” But definitely when I joined as a freshman, I realized really quickly that pretty much everyone in the club is an amateur and has never had an encounter with beekeeping before, so I think it’s really special that we’re able to give people that experience.
The other thing that I wanted to add is that our mailing list is actually 800 people, which is insane. Obviously we don’t get 800 people at every meeting, but we do get, I would say, a pretty good turnout compared to a lot of other clubs at BU, so I do love to see it and love to see that so many people are interested in beekeeping. I think there’s a lot of bees in decorative stuff. I feel like I see bee decorations at Target and everything, so I think it’s a good way for people to apply a surface-level love of bees and then get to dive deeper into it.
Q: Is it normal for cities to have beekeeping?
A: That’s another thing I think is pretty unique. I don’t know that most colleges have a beekeeping club, and I think especially since we’re in the city it presents a whole new challenge of finding a space to house bees. But I will say, I know that Boston Medical Center actually has a beekeeping group, and they have bees on the roof of their hospital, which I think is super cool. It’s definitely challenging that we can’t just walk into the woods and put them there, but I guess it forces us to innovate a little more.
Q: That could be good for the future, right? To be able to have bees in cities, since bees are endangered?
A: Absolutely, I think I would definitely agree. There’s spontaneous bee flight, where they just leave, which is really bad. I think having them in a city is really special. Not just because they pollinate, but getting people in the city exposure to bees and beekeeping I think really makes people feel like they’re having more of an encounter with sustainability and nature.
Q: So what do you hope is going to happen to the club once you’re gone? Do you have any ideas?
A: I’m a senior, so I’ve thought about this a little bit. I think, in the past, BU Beekeeping has had bees, but not been the most active club. And I think we have a really high level of interest, and I would love to see it expand even more. I’ve already tried a bit to meet more frequently and hold more events, but I know that I, personally, could probably do it even more, so hopefully next semester. But I will say, next semester, we’re planning on installing honeybees, and I would love to see that hive that we install survive for several years. That would be a really special and cool find: that even though we are amateurs, we’re able to have a bit of success.
There you have it! The BU Beekeepers are a great club of environmentally-aware individuals who are taking initiative to promote sustainability on campus and leave a lasting, positive impact in a very hands-on way.
If you’re looking for a new and exciting way to become involved in environmentalism, consider the BU Beekeepers; you won’t regret it.
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