The Beekeeping Club was founded a few years ago to practice a hobby several students had developed. Back then, the club’s founders might not have envisioned what a success it would become over the next few years. Today, the club allows students to learn about bees, care for them, and harvest honey to sell through responsible practices.

Beekeeping Club president Ojas Sharma explains that,

“Beekeeping Club is one of the only almost completely student-run clubs here at Malvern, and it was founded by some really cool people, one of them being Tommy Bevevino ’21. He envisioned a club highlighting this passionate hobby of his, and that’s what we’re here to do: teach others about beekeeping, what we do, and why bees are so important for the environment,” Sharma said.

The vice president of the Beekeeping Club, Cole Kirchner, talks about why the club exists and how the club allows students at Malvern to enjoy the natural environment on campus.

“Many kids on campus, myself included, have a passion for nature and just like to be outside as much as possible,” Kirchner explains. “I think beekeeping is a great way to do this on campus. It’s pretty easy to do; it only took me about a week or two to kind of get the hang of it. It’s really great just to interact with nature, especially on campus, and have a positive impact on the community around us too.”

The club members can maintain healthy beehives through scheduled check-ups throughout the year. Sharma discusses what the club does on a regular basis to ensure all natural processes are running smoothly.

“We [go] out and regularly checked on the hives; we’re making sure that they’re healthy and the queen bees are alive,” Sharma explains. “We also did feeding, which was preparing them for winter. Then we kind of closed it up for the winter, and we came back during the springtime. We get help from a professional beekeeper; his name is Tim, and he teaches us what to do, how to do it, and why we are doing it.”

Maintaining the beehives requires time and care. Sharma expresses, however, how the club also makes efforts in order to advertise and attract new members.

“I’d say you spend an hour just checking on the hives, like every two to three weeks,” Sharma stated. “In the winter, we keep it closed so the cold doesn’t kill [the bees]. We also do other things outside of that. I did some graphic design preparation for the labels that we wanted for the honey bottles. We also do social media and make posts for that.”

Over the summer, the club has to maintain its check-up schedule too.

“We kind of kept the same structure during the past summer as well,” Kirchner says. “We were in there once every other week. [We were] making sure the queen bees were doing well and the brood. Then, we harvested the honey.”

Sharma adds, “Another thing that we did [was] treat the bees with formic acid to kill off any parasites that might attack them.”

Every year, the Beekeeping Club looks to expand its reach to the Malvern community. A large part of this initiative is generating awareness and interest for the club. Sharma provides a few of the ideas he has in mind for the club this upcoming school year.

“This year,” explains Sharma, “we’re really trying to push forward this marketing launch. Essentially, we are selling the honey here at Malvern and making people aware of it. We want to get money reinvested back into the club to get more suits so we can get more people involved in the club. With a limited number of suits, we obviously can’t have everyone [go] out. People don’t want to be stung and everything like that.”

Kirchner also adds that a big hope for this year is to set up people to lead the club in the following years.

“To add onto that,” Kirchner explains, “we’re seniors this year. This is something that we both love and really enjoy doing. So, I think a big part of this year for us is going to be finding people that continue on after we graduate.”

Sharma reiterates the point that commitment to the club is necessary for it to continue to be as successful as it has been.

“We want to make sure that kids who are joining this club are enthusiastic about it,” says Sharma. “It’s not just something they are putting on their college application. It is something that they want to do.”

With leaders like Sharma and Kirchner running the show, the future is bright for the Beekeeping Club, and we are excited to see what the future holds.