The University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo’s agricultural farm laboratory in Panaʻewa hosted a special event on April 12, to honor the “bee-coming” community of students, donors, local farmers, island chefs and community members who are part of the university’s collaborative bee program.
The foundational buzz of the annual “Bee-coming Sustainable” event is a community-based partnership between Professor of Entomology Lorna Tsutsumi from UH Hilo’s College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resource Management and award-winning Chef Alan Wong, who co-founded of the university’s “Adopt-A-Beehive with Alan Wong” program.
Wong, known as one of 12 co-founders of Hawaiʻi Regional Cuisine, teamed up with Tsutsumi and UH Hilo to build awareness and promote local solutions to sustain the honey bee industry in Hawaiʻi.
“Fifteen years after its inception, the Adopt-A Beehive program with Alan Wong is doing well in promoting the importance of honey bees to our local and global well bee-ing,” said Tsutsumi who is the coordinator of the apiary program located at the university’s farm.
Honey bee education
The program supports the beekeeping courses and certificate at UH Hilo which teaches good practices to students so that they can properly manage and maintain honey bee colonies at the UH Hilo farm laboratory in Panaʻewa. It also awards scholarships to beekeeping students and promotes the importance of honey bees. Since its inception, the program has awarded more than $27,000 in scholarships to beekeeping students at UH Hilo.
“The program was the brain child of world renown Chef Alan Wong who believes that supporting the local honey bees through education is a win-win for students and the community and, of course, the honey bees,” said Tsutsumi.
Learn more about how to adopt a beehive.
Every spring, the program invites community adopters to the UH Hilo farm to see the hives that are managed for them by the beekeeping students, meet the students, and engage with bee-minded people who together celebrate the importance of bees.
For more go UH Hilo Stories.
—By Susan Enright
