For years, we at SeaBee honey, have worked with our local schools providing free pollination overviews and observation hive visits.  In 2020, we helped the folks at the Dondero School in Portsmouth with writing a grant to receive a new bee hive and equipment used to manage the hive.   While they provided the equipment, in this case a top bar hive, we provided the honey bees at no cost.

We also provided pollinator overviews with the 3rd graders at Dondero that ranged from Pollination 101 to Products of the Hive.  With the support of Portsmouth Superintendent, Dondero's Principal and Mrs. McCain we were able to set up a space on the campus that could safely house the hive.  Finally, after a one year delay due to Covid-19 we were finally able to hive bees in the top bar hive.

In the attached video you will see Mrs. McCain shake out 3lbs of bees into the top bar hive.   Great job Mrs. McCain and all the teachers, faculty and students at Dondero!   

  For years we have been helping schools with their pollinator education by using PowerPoint presentations, processing frames of honey with our mobile extractor, and the use of an observation hive.   In 2019,  Sarah McCain from the Dondero School in Portsmouth, NH reached out to SeaBee Honey to ask if we would help assist with their grant application and provide guidance to their pollinator program.  This was an endeavor we could not refuse and we offered our services and volunteered to supply the bees for their new hive at no cost. 

The grant was approved and we had the chance to visit the school and look at the equipment they had received.  The top bar hive was a nice surprise and even has an observation window for the kids to view the bees.   We went through the equipment with the team and discussed our next steps which would involve placing bees into the hive in the next few months.

We are excited about this new learning experience for us all!

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For the last couple of years, we have been working with the Rye Conservation Corp and Rockingham County Conservation District to provide pollination education to the community and area schools.  Recently, we had students from the Rye Junior High come down to tour the farm, harvest pumpkins they planted in the Spring, and tour the apiary.

We love working with the students and we bring out our charts and educational materials whenever we can to help demonstrate the importance of pollinators.  One of the most effective learning aids is the observation hive that allows us to pull a frame of bees from an existing hive and place it in a protected plexiglass construct.  This allows us to show the different types of bees, honey, brood, and pollen.   Everyone loves to see the queen so we are always sure to have her in the observation hive.   If we capture just the right bees at the right time we can demonstrate the bee dance used by foraging bees to communicate the location and type of pollen/honey they have found.  While the queen is always a hit a dancing bee is one of the most amazing sites that we can show to a group of students.

If you are interested in having a honey bee overview or visit to an apiary please reach out to us to learn how we can make it happen.
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