Three University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo students from the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management have been selected to each receive an Adopt-a-Beehive with Alan Wong Scholarship. The recipients are Samuel Clubb, Laurie Jahraus, and Shohei Yamaki. The awards were presented Feb. 23 at the “Bee-coming Sustainable” event held at UH Hilo’s Farm Laboratory in Panaʻewa
The three $1000 scholarships are made possible through the generous support of donors who have joined Chef Alan Wong in adopting beehives at UH Hilo’s Farm Laboratory in Panaʻewa in the 2012-2013 school year. Launched in the fall of 2011, the Adopt-a-Beehive with Alan Wong program builds awareness of the critical plight of honey bees and promotes local solutions to sustaining the honey bee industry.
All three students successfully completed UH Hilo’s introductory beekeeping course (Entomology 262) during the fall semester, learning to take care of beehives and to extract honey, while communicating with their assigned beehive adopters. They qualified for the scholarship by demonstrating a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher and enrolling in advanced beekeeping (Entomology 350) for the spring semester.
Lorna Tsutsumi, professor of entomology, has taught the beekeeping curriculum at UH Hilo for over thirty years.
“Through the partnership with Alan Wong, the program is achieving a set of common beneficial goals,” says Tsutsumi. “We are supporting UH Hilo students and the next generation of students, giving students the opportunity to share their education with the lifelong learners in our community, and creating public awareness of the importance of the honey bee and beekeeping.”