Bee Education

close up photo of beehive

Rhode Island College has been a home to honeybees for over 10 years! Our hives house about 40–50,000 bees each. With six hives across campus, the bees pollinate local plant life and the produce grown in our community garden. Thanks to the bees, our garden produces around 1,000 pounds of produce each year, and we collect about 200 pounds of honey.

Interested in a Bee Education Field Trip?

Buzz, our resident Bee expert, leads tours of our Bee Education Center, RIC Greenhouse and Community Garden. We invite individuals or groups to join us for an enriching, hands-on tour of the college’s green initiatives. Buzz is here to educate kids of all ages - with field trips customized according to student age and the timeframe your group has available.

Email Us to Schedule Today

Please Note: Each field trip should also schedule a rain date, as all field trips are dependent on weather. 

Preschool–Grade 3 Students

Learn about types of bees, roles of each bee in the hive, beekeeping tools and how keeps help earth! 

Grade 4–8 Students

Learn about the roles of bees as pollinators, how pheromones are used for communication and the waggle dance!

Grade 9–12 Students 

Learn about neonicotinoids and their effects on hives and agriculture, pollination and its use in our culture.

Educational Materials

If you're able to schedule a field trip with us, or if you're just looking to educate your students about bees, we provide materials for you.

Teaching Materials - Learn More About Bees

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Support the Bee Education Center

Please help us continue to educate the local community. The Bee Education Center Fund provides for any expenses relating to bee education - such as supplies, student stipends, research and instruction.

Teaching Materials

General Information on Bees

Honeybees are social insects and live together in hives which may contain thousands of bees. A honey bee hive is like a complex society. Each individual has a job and together the bees all contribute so that the hive thrives. Each hive at RIC contains 40-50,000 bees. Within the hives, each bee works as part of a team to keep the hive functioning. The biology of honey bees relates to their behavior. Honey bees are classified as either worker bees, drones, or queens.

Worker Bees

Worker bees are females and help keep the hive in production. There will be thousands of workers and they hold many jobs. Worker bees care for the young, developing bees called larvae, and the queen bee. Worker bees also build hexagonal cells for the eggs and larvae, supply the hive with nectar, keep the hive clean, as well as cool in summer and warm in winter. As worker bees explore outside the hive, they collect nectar and pollen, water, and plant sap called propolis. These materials will be used for food resources and to fix damages in the hive.

Drone Bees

Within each hive there will be only a few hundred males called drones. Drone bees have one job: to mate with a queen bee. Directly after mating the drone will die. While waiting to mate, the drones will live in the hives and be taken care of by the worker bees. Although drones are larger than the female workers, they must rely on them for protection because drones lack stingers.

Queen Bee

A hive will have a single queen bee who lays all the eggs in the hive. She is larger than the rest of the workers and drones and is selected as the queen by being fed a special food, called royal jelly, when she is a developing larva. Her job is to lay eggs, up to 1,500 per day, and go off to find drones to mate with. She will travel far outside the hive to reduce chances of mating with a drone from her own hive. This helps prevent poorly developed bees from being born and damaging the system. She will typically live for two years. After her death, a new queen is chosen. In hives, the queen will be marked with paint to keep track of her whereabouts.​​​

Communication Within the Hive

Bees use a process called chemical signaling to communicate to each other in the hive. They diffuse molecules into the air, called pheromones, and can understand their meaning. Bees also communicate through one another using behaviors such as a ‘waggle’ dance pattern to communicate the location of pollen. Besides using pollen to make their own honey for food, when bees fly from flower to flower they also have another important role in nature: pollination. As they land on each flower they will become covered in pollen, a yellow dust that helps germinate other plants.

Pollination in Rhode Island

Bees are designated to be pollinators and have pollen cling to their bodies and transferred onto other flowers they land on. Their legs have long hairs that pollen can stick to, as well as "pollen sacs" on their sides that collect large quantities of pollen and stay piled up on their sides.

Fruits and Vegetables That Bees Pollinate

  • Broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus, cucumbers
  • Pumpkins, summer squash, butternut squash
  • Zucchini, tomatoes, apples, strawberries
  • Blueberries, raspberries, watermelon, peaches 

Plants That Attract Bees

  • Dandelions, milkweed, goldenrod, roses
  • Black eyed susan, daisies, sunflowers
  • Laurel, rhododendron, azalea, aster

Timeline of Bee Activity in RI

Month of the YearWhat to Expect
JanuaryThe bees huddle together in the hive to surround the queen and keep warm during the winter.
FebruaryThe queen will begin to lay her eggs.
March/AprilIf warm enough, the bees will start to fly out in search of food.
May/JuneWorkers collect pollen and nectar from flowers to make into honey and the queen will begin mating with drones from around the area.
JulyHoney can start being collected from the hives. RIC will usually collect a total of 200 pounds of honey between the six hives.
AugustWorker bees will restore any damage to the hives, using propolis "bee glue" to fill any cracks.
SeptemberDrones are pushed out of the hives because their job is complete.
OctoberWorkers travel for the last few gatherings of nectar before hibernation.
NovemberQueen stops laying eggs.
DecemberBees will hibernate over winter, huddling close and eating the honey they have stored over the year.

Threats to Bees

Bee Populations are Declining World-Wide

Although honey bees have garnered much of the press, native bee populations and other pollinators such as butterflies are also declining. These species are vitally important within local ecosystems. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a major cause of honey bee losses and occurs when adult bees flee the hive leaving the Queen and developing bee brood behind. Without worker bees, the hive is doomed. A number of factors likely contribute to CCD and the decline of bee populations in general. 

Pesticides

As an insect, honey bees are quite sensitive to most classes of insecticides. Even low doses of these compounds can adversely affect foraging honey bees and therefore the hive itself. Recently, a relatively new class of compounds called the neonicotinoids were banned in Europe due to their detrimental effects on bee populations.

Habitat Loss & Fragmentation

As open spaces (meadows, fields, and wetlands) are lost or fragmented due to human activities, bees must travel further to forage for pollen and nectar, therefore making it harder to sustain the hive. Successful foraging is particularly critical in the fall when bees need to build-up food stores to sustain the hive through the winter. It is now common for about 50% of all honey hives to be lost during the winter months.

Pathogens

Viruses, bacteria, fungi and even other insects can kill bees. The list of bee pathogens is long and growing as we learn more about bee biology. Some of these threats are relatively recent. For instance, Varroa mites (Varroa destructor) are native to Asia but in the 1940’s, were seen in honey bee hives in Africa and Europe. Since this time, Varroa mites have traveled nearly world-wide and are a major threat to bee populations. Even more recently, the Small Hive Beetle (SHB) began infesting honey bee hives in Europe and the Americas. The SHB first appeared in the US in the late 1990’s. This beetle is native to sub-Saharan Africa and thrives in warmer climates. However, SHBs have quickly adapted to colder US environments and can be seen in most states in the North East. Many of these bee pathogens move with bee populations. Because bees are so important for agriculture, bee hives are often transported to fertilize crops. Bees are also transported through the mail as a ‘packet’. The transport of bees facilitates the movement of bee pathogens. 

Collecting and Using Honey

Honey Collection

A comb is removed from the hive carefully by a beekeeper. The comb is scraped with the heat knife to remove the whitish seal that the bees layered over the honey.

This will open the cells up to allow the honey to be taken out. A special machine, called an extractor, is used to pull the honey from each of the honey comb cells. Once it is released, the honey will be strained through a screen to be sifted and collect.

Using Honey

Honey is used in a variety of ways, but if you're looking for some recommended honey-based recipes RIC's Executive Chef, Dean Faiola, has a few favorites. 

Honey-Based Recipes to Try

Looking to Learn More?

2011

Anthropology professor Dr. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban visited University of California- Davis campus bee research facility. She was intrigued with the use of honeybees on campus and wanted to start a program for Rhode Island College, focusing on honeybee research and bee education.

2012

Bee Education Center
Dr. Geoff Stilwell, Jim Murphy, and Dr. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban
  • With approval and heavy support of previous RIC President Dr. Nancy Carriuolo, three hives and beekeeper protective gear were donated by the Rhode Island Bee Association (RIBA).
  • Betty Mencucci and RIBA began using RIC campus to teach a basics of beekeeping class.
  • Jim Murphy, Sustainability Coordinator, took over the hives after Dr. Fluehr-Lobban and her husband Dr. Richard Lobban’s retirement. Both continue to support the hives with supplies and advocacy today.
  • Ed Lafferty and members of RIBA, along with Jim Lawson, State Bee Inspector for the Department of Environmental Management (DEM), assist in the caretaking of the hives.

2014

Bee Education Center
  • DownCity Design, a non-profit architectural and engineering group for high schoolers, built a storage and educational setup for field trips.
  • They built honey comb shaped storage with bee facts on the fronts that doubles as seating, a honeycomb shaped white board, and shed to keep the beekeeper gear.
  • Field trips are started for Henry Barnard Lab School on campus for preschool-elementary students. Word is spread and soon middle school and high school students from across Rhode Island are joining.
  • A study was started focusing on the Small Hive Beetle, a species of invasive beetle that is living in hives, stealing resources and killing hives across the east coast.
  • This grant funded project is continuing to be led by biology professor Dr. Geoff Stilwell.

2016

  • Dr. Frank Sánchez started his presidency and continued supporting the hives.
  • RIC served as a distribution point of queens in the RIBA/DEM “Queen Rearing” program.

2018

Teaching at the Bee Education Center
Students of all ages learn about the hives on campus, instructed by Jim Murphy
  • Studies are continuing about the SHB and many local students are learning the joys of beekeeping and how bees affect our environment.

2020

  • Field trips did not occur this year as a result of the pandemic.
  • The pandemic may have stopped students from coming to campus, but the bees kept on buzzing!

2023

Elementary school students at RIC Bee Education field trip
  • Field trips resumed allowing students from Ricci Middle School, St. Augustine Elementary, and Blackstone Valley Prep to meet the bees!

Explore Bee Education

Rhode Island College entrance

Contact Us

James P. Murphy

Mr. James C. Murphy

Assistant Director of Facilities & Ops/Sustainability & Logistics