Video: PBS show on buzz worthy beekeeping program at UH Hilo
Over at the UH Hilo farm in Panaʻewa, students are getting hands-on lessons in beekeeping. The program is so buzz worthy, a renowned chef is helping to foster this next generation of beekeepers.
By Susan Enright.
Today on PBS Hawaiʻi, a story aired on the beekeeping program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. The segment is part of the “Home is Here” series, a show that highlights “the people, cultures, history and moʻolelo (stories) that make these islands we call home so special.”
Featured in the bee story are Professor of Entomology Lorna Tsutsumi who founded the university’s beekeeping program and apiary, Farm Manager Jake Rodrique, UH Hilo’s Adopt-a-Beehive Program co-founder Chef Alan Wong, and several students who are each earning a beekeeping certificate at UH Hilo.
Professor Tsutsumi says her passion for bees comes from understanding how important they are to agriculture.
“You can go to the internet and look at pictures with and without pollination and you can see how that affects our food choices, our food supply,” Tsutsumi says. “And knowing that, it becomes absolutely essential that we not only encourage beekeeping for the products, but we encourage bees for pollination. And when we do so, we do so with good practices, good solid beekeeping practices, and that’s what we teach our students so that they in turn will teach other people how to do good practices, and this perpetuates a better way of looking at agriculture and looking at beekeeping.”
Watch the video to see UH Hilo students at the university’s agricultural farm laboratory in Panaʻewa tending to the bees and sharing their manaʻo (thoughts) about the importance of beekeeping.
“I’m very interested in agriculture, and seeing how important it is for my island back home, I thought that beekeeping would be a necessary tool to use and get acquainted with so that one day I can probably start that on my own as well as be a farmer,” says student ʻIliahi Tancayo who is from Molokaʻi and earning a beekeeping certificate.
“I haven’t been up close to a bee ever in my life prior to this class,” says Tancayo. “So being able to be properly suited and, you know, the safety gear and procedures in place, like, just being up close in the apiary gave me more actual interest in the bees because I got to be in their environment instead of being on the outside looking at a tiny little bee. I got to be up close and see exactly what their nature is like.”
Story by Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
