March 5, 2013

Dear Adopter,

I want to begin this letter by again thanking you for your support of the Adopt-A-Beehive with Alan Wong program. Your support has provided the program with resources to accomplish many things this year. On February 23, 2012, we had our second annual “Bee-Coming Sustainable” event at the UH Hilo Farm in Panaewa, Hawaii. The event was an adopter appreciation event filled with lots of things to see, taste and experience. I thank those of you who braved the elements to attend the event and want to share with those of you who could not attend some event photos.

The tables were decorated with miniature Lanstroth bee hive centerpieces and hexagonal designed paper covering. The “kids” table was a giant coloring page with crayons made by one of the beekeeping students and bee themed pinwheels.

Of course there was food such as pizza with honey dough and AW (Alan Wong) made pizza sauce, AW’s famous ginger spritzer, hot dogs with AW mustard and ketchup (yes, it was yellow), and lemonade made by AW with UH Hilo honey and meyer lemons from Wailea Agricultural Group.

To keep with the bee theme, water bottles (for humans) were available at the giant Langrstroth hive, the same type used in the apiary to provide the bees with water.

Students demonstrated the process of extraction including how to uncap the frames and talked about bees that were displayed in an observation hive.

In the advanced beekeeping course, students are required to work independently on a bee related project. Shohei’s project was to make a series of short videos about UH Hilo’s beekeeping activities which will be sent to Tamagawa University in Tokyo, Japan, Briana’s project was to make a usable deodorant (the samples were available at the event) and Andrea made crayons using beeswax from the UH Hilo hives that were enjoyed by the little and big kids.

Each spring, the program awards three $1,000.00 scholarships to advanced beekeeping students for their outstanding academic achievement and interest in beekeeping. This year, Chancellor Don Straney and Chef Alan Wong awarded the scholarships to Samuel Clubb, Lauris Jahraus, and Shohei Yamaki.

Also this year, an anonymous donor gifted a hive to the second grade class at E.B. DeSilva School in Hilo. The students were invited to the event and joined the festivities with Chef Wong. The class receives periodic letters and honey just like a regular adopter.

There were van tours to the apiary though unfortunately we could not provide up close and personal openings of the hive for the adopters to experience due to the weather. Andrea and her son Felix provided the demonstration at one of the hives in the apiary.

This year the program also piloted a project to connect local farmers with

bees and beekeeping. Mike Crowell and Lesley Hill from Wailea Agricultural Group (WAG) allowed us to place a UH Hilo hive on their farm. The lemons in the lemonade at the event were from WAG and were pollinated by UH Hilo’s bees. Mike says that fruit production has increased since the arrival of the bees and brought the frames of honey produced by the bees to the event to be extracted on a 2 frame hand cranked extractor.

I could not totally capture the essence of the event that again was for you, the adopter, but I hope that you can see the “good” that has come from your support of the program. We hope that you will continue with us in the following years on the road towards “bee-coming sustainable”.

With sincere gratitude and appreciation,

Lorna and Alan