News & Announcements

Honeybee Hives Now Part of AWS Campus!

Posted on September 13, 2018

By Kathy McElveen, General School Leader

The Austin Waldorf School is home to two new top-bar beehives! The first one was donated by the Hays County Beekeepers Association (HCBA) and BeeWeavers of Navasota and Dripping Springs. The second one is from a school family that has moved out of state, the D’Souza’s. They are located in the open woods between the 5th grade and the new five acres.

Installing the bee hive from Hays County Beekeepers Association on April 7, 2018

We were contacted by Nathalie Misserey-Biggie of HCBA last November. She wrote: We know “that your school works around natural landscapes and is in tune with nature as a way to provide education to children.” Your students will “discover and learn to appreciate the world of these wonderful creatures and what they do, and how the human culture has been working with them across ages and borders. This type of learning seems to be so in tune with Waldorf teachings that I cannot help to think it would be a great project for the school, hence my initiative in contacting you today.” We responded with an enthusiastic, “Yes! We’d love to collaborate with you!” HCBA constructed the hive and BeeWeavers donated a “package” of bees consisting of a queen and about three pounds of worker bees. The bees were introduced to their new home on April 7.

The next step was to put together a team of volunteer bee stewards from the community to ensure that the bees receive appropriate support and to prepare educational opportunities for the students. Answering the call for volunteers were: Samantha Kruse, Mark Gerhardstein, Nathan Jones, Etta Mae McCarroll, and Bob Brockett. General School Leader, Kathy McElveen, has been keeping bees on her property near the school for over 10 years and is also a member of the Bee Steward group.

A stroke of good fortune was a connection with the master beekeeper and top-bar hive expert Les Crowder. Mr. Crowder has been a beekeeper for over 50 years and is a pioneer of best practices with top-bar hives. He relocated to Dripping Springs a few years ago and has agreed to work with AWS doing student and community presentations, mentoring our volunteer Bee Stewards, and helping to keep an eye on the hives. His first meeting with students was with our 9th grade on September 13 as part of their Comparative Anatomy block.

Two Top-Bar Bee Hives

Mr. Crowder worked with commercial beekeepers for many years but became concerned about the stressful, chemical laden conditions that are the norm. He has become an advocate for natural, chemical-free methods and has improved the design of the top-bar hive. Top-bar hives are inexpensive, longlasting, and allow bees to build combs as they would in their natural environment. He has written a book with Heather Harrell, Top-Bar Beekeeping: Organic Practices for Honeybee Health, for those interested to learn more.

This initiative, to have beehives on our AWS campus, is right on schedule as Waldorf100, the international celebration of 100 years of Waldorf Education, has named this as a core project for Waldorf schools all over the world. From Waldorf100 and Bees:“A colony of bees works mainly for the bees who will come, who are not there yet – that is, for the future. They are quintessentially social beings. By their example, we can dedicate our lives to the future, to supporting change for the good of our community, both here and everywhere.”

This project does indeed fit well with our school, our students, and our community. We are grateful to the Hays County Beekeepers Association and BeeWeavers for supporting us in becoming stewards to these bees and beginning our journey of learning from them.

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