From the multitude of clubs that have begun on campus, the student-initiated Beekeeping Club has flourished since its relatively recent inception. Through the hard work of its moderators and members, the club has been recognized by the Chester County Beekeepers Association with a $1500 grant. 

Dr. Jim Fry, Director of Student Life and a Beekeeping Club moderator, had an influential hand in securing this grant because he sought to help the club expand.

“Tim Ferris, a volunteer for the club and originally from New Zealand, is affiliated with the Chester County Beekeepers Association and was the one who really connected us with the opportunity for this grant,” Fry said. “After filling out the application with Boccuti, it was about a two week turnaround time and we found out we had received the $1500.”

Now that the money was secured, the Beekeeping Club had plans for how they would beneficially spend it to help expand the hives and support the well being of the bees.

“The money will go towards sustainability beekeeping activities, giving us the opportunity to buy more NUCs if need be, replacement queen materials, or other things of that nature,” Mr. Matthew Boccuti, a fellow Beekeeping Club moderator, said.

It must be noted that this grant would not have been earned if it had not been for the exceptional student leadership of the Beekeeping Club, which is currently led by seniors Tom Wang ’21 and Pup Buono ’21.

“I think they have done a great job and especially with the descriptions of COVID, they’ve been doing a good job managing getting students involved, while still doing the work of managing the hive. This has definitely been a challenging year for all clubs, and I think Thomas and Pup have done a really wonderful job of keeping progress going,” Boccuti said.

“I feel like the two of them are definitely passionate about getting a lot more use out of our natural resources on campus,” Fry said. “It’s really been awesome to see something student driven and then reaping the benefits, for example in the past they harvested 10lbs of honey.”

With this grant and strong leadership of the club, both moderators are confident that the future of the Beekeeping club is bright.

“From a continuing expansion of the hives to an extension into raising American honeybees and other native insects are possible future projects the club can take on,” Boccuti said. “To understand what beehives are and the kind of nature of what’s going on there would be a really beneficial activity for the club to do and I think it’d be beneficial for our campus community to understand the benefits that insects provide on a daily basis.”