Together, We Can Make Something Sweet

This work was done as part of the Spring 2024 course A Flora of the Future.

On Earth, there are over 20,000 known species of bee, found on every land mass except Antarctica. But when you think of a bee,you probably imagine the honey bee. These famous honey bees, believed to originate from Africa or Asia, are most well-known for their production and storage of honey, their construction of beeswax hives to house their highly social queen-led colonies, and their ability to sting. These qualities are not shared by all other bees! In fact, there are only eight recognized species of honey bee; most bee species do not produce and store honey, live in a highly social colony structure, or even sting. Bees come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, some developing unique features, adapting them to more effectively feed from (and more effectively pollinate) the flowers in their surroundings.

The following is an edited interview with Dave, a beekeeper local to Charlottesville, on the practice of beekeeping. It considers the relationships between people, honey bees, and the environment and ecosystems they share and depend on.

The full interview can be found here.

We also put together a short brochure highlighting some of what we learned from Dave.

A downloadable version of the brochure can be found here.

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