Hive-minded: Bee-Coming Sustainable event highlights UH-Hilo beekeeping program

University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo’s agricultural farm laboratory in Panaʻewa was abuzz with excitement during a special event last month that brought together a hive-minded group of up-and-“bee-coming” students, donors, local farmers, island chefs and community members.

They were there for the annual Bee-Coming Sustainable soirée that highlights and honors the university’s collaborative honey bee and beekeeping program.

The foundational buzz of the event is a community-based partnership between University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management professor of entomology Lorna Tsutsumi and award-winning Chef Alan Wong, who co-founded the university’s Adopt-A-Beehive with Alan Wong program.

Wong, known as one of 12 co-founders of Hawaiʻi regional cuisine, teamed up with Tsutsumi and University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo to build awareness and promote local solutions to sustain the honey bee industry in Hawaiʻi.

“Fifteen years after its inception, the Adopt-A Beehive program with Alan Wong is doing well in promoting the importance of honey bees to our local and global well-‘bee-ing,'” said Tsutsumi, who is coordinator of the apiary program at the university’s farm, in a story by University of Hawaiʻi News.

The program supports the beekeeping courses and certificate program at University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, which teach good practices to students so they can properly manage and maintain honey bee colonies at the university’s farm laboratory in Panaʻewa.

It also awards scholarships to beekeeping students and promotes the importance of honey bees.

The Adopt-A-Beehive program has awarded more than $27,000 in scholarships to University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo beekeeping students since its inception.

“The program, just like the bees, [is] not just surviving, but thriving!” Tsutsumi said.

Wong believes supporting beekeeping education is a win-win for students, the community and, of course, honey bees.

Adopters are invited each spring to the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo farm to see the hives managed for them by beekeeping students, meet the students and engage with bee-minded people who together celebrate the importance of honey bees.

Anyone who wants to adopt a beehive at the university’s apiary and support the research and development of healthy beehive practices in Hawaiʻi can visit the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation website to learn more about how to file “adoption papers.”

Adopters get periodic reports and photos of their assigned bee colony.

They also receive a personal supply of honey and honey products, along with invitations to join Wong at bee- and agriculture-related activities on campus and at the Panaʻewa far.