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BEES NOW ENJOYING THE SWEET LIFE AT RJ
You would never know that somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 bees now call the roof of the Boys Division building home and that is by design. "We wanted to mitigate any possibility of people on campus being stung," says new RJ alum Brodie Halker '22 of Rolling Hill Bees. In August 2021, as he began his senior year, Halker proposed that school leaders consider adding honey bee hives to our expansive campus.
Leadership agreed that the addition would be in sound alignment with the Jesuit Universal Apostolic Preference of Caring for Our Common Home and entered into a partnership with Rolling Hill Bees to place hives atop one of the campus buildings. Two RJ-branded hives were installed in late April and a May inspection revealed that what Halker describes as "docile" and "well-mannered" bees (of course they are!) are thriving.
The two hives are inspected every two weeks by representatives from Rolling Hill Bees and RJ Facilities to ensure everything looks copacetic and that the bees are in good health. Halker is training Sam Koch '24 to care for the hives so Koch can take over next year while Brodie takes a gap year to pursue his commercial pilot's license.
Halker's interest in beekeeping comes naturally. He recalls being fascinated "by how wild things manage" ever since he was young and also has a penchant for falconry. He started Rolling Hill Bees three years ago as a wholesaling business for honey and pollen. After doing some market research, Halker realized there was an opportunity to expand his business to hive management. "Bees are responsible for two-thirds of the pollination of the surrounding area they are located in," he shares, so are critical in helping maintain our ecosystem. That notion alone was enough to convince school leadership that investing in the hives was worthwhile and not only because of the alignment with our Jesuit values. There's also the honey.
Raw honey is known to have numerous health benefits including being a good source of antioxidants and having antibacterial and antifungal properties. When asked how much honey Regis Jesuit can expect to harvest, Halker notes that it is difficult to predict, but estimates that they could produce as much as 40 pounds in a year—that's a lot of golden sweetness!
Right now, the school isn't certain exactly what will be done with this bounty, but there are lots of good ideas surfacing including using it in the cafeterias, selling it in the Raider Shop and donating it to local food pantries, among others. Rest assured that when our first harvest comes in, we will be abuzz about it.
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Regis Jesuit High School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, athletic and other school-administered programs.