University of South Florida (Tampa)
IN-1: Innovation 1

The goal of the USF Botanical Garden Apiary Project is to provide hands-on experience in honeybee biology and beekeeping for students, faculty, and the broader USF community. The theme of the Project is “what’s good for bees is good for people.” Honeybees thrive in a healthy environment, free of pesticides, herbicides, and pollutants, and with a rich variety of plants close by for collecting nectar and pollen. An aspect of this project is to create awareness of the human responsibility to maintain environments good for bees so that they can benefit us by pollinating plants and producing honey. This relationship is the very definition of sustainability. Participants in the monthly beekeeping workshops at the Apiary learn step by step how to take care of honeybee colonies and gain appreciation of the role of honeybees in local ecosystems. The USF campus and its ecosystems are the home range for the Apiary’s bees. In 2013 the class extracted 18 gallons of honey from seven of the Apiary’s hives. This honey was bottled and sold at the Botanical Gardens Gift Shop. Bee Class students also learn to tell the change of seasons by observing the kinds of pollen coming into the hives. One purpose of the bee workshops is to prepare students to become real beekeepers. In the March class they build their own hives. In April they take home live bees in a starter colony. The USF Apiary Project hopes that honeybee populations will increase by encouraging people to become responsible, informed beekeepers. This is of crucial importance now in the face of bee population decline worldwide. The USF Apiary Project is the only project of its kind statewide, based at a university and designed as community outreach and public education. At present, the Apiary contains 15 colonies located at the Botanical Garden.