For Patrick Frazier, another construction project often means searching for a place to keep the bees for his beekeeping class, PLSC 175.
“It’s like a polite eviction notice,” Frazier said.
As construction projects continue to reshape Cal Poly’s campus, the university’s beekeeping class has repeatedly been forced to relocate its hives.
For years, the program has provided students with hands-on experience managing honey bee colonies, inspecting gives and extracting honey. However, finding places to keep these colonies has become increasingly difficult.
“We’re told, hey, in a couple months or in a month, this land is we can’t use this for our bee location anymore, or we’re going to have to move,” Frazier said.
According to Frazier, the hives have occupied several locations across campus over the years, including a lemon orchard near a creek, an area near Highland Drive and multiple agricultural sites. One of the most recent losses was a bee yard located near the horticulture unit.
“That was, in my opinion, my favorite bee yard. And we lost it,” Frazier said.
Unlike other agricultural programs, relocating bees isn’t as simple as loading equipment onto a truck and driving to a new location.
Jeremy Rose, who supplies hives for the class through the California Bee Company, said bees naturally return to places they recognize. Due to this, colonies can’t simply be moved a short distance across campus.
“One of our biggest challenges is that every time we move to a different spot, the bees actually have to be moved three miles away first,” Rose said. “You can’t just move a hive like 100 feet away because all the bees come back where the hive was because they remember that territory.”
Moving hives also requires careful timing, adds additional labor, planning and transportation costs. Hives can only be moved at night as it ensures that the entire colony is safe inside the hive and allows for a much calmer transport.
“Every time you move them, it kind of stops what they’re doing,” Jeremy said. “Any disturbance kind of just increases the challenge a little bit.”
Finding a suitable location isn’t always easy either. According to Frazier, a good location for the bees contains access to forage, water and wind protection. They must also remain accessible enough for students to reach during lab sessions.
“People think you can just put them wherever you want. But that’s not true,” Frazier said.
Taso Yuen, city and regional planning senior, is a student in the class. He said the university should do more to consider how construction projects affect existing programs.
“The school should think a little more about where they decide to put a lot of these developments and make sure that all the departments and all the classes that would be affected are properly accounted for,” Yuen said.
Political science senior, Scott Drouin, is also a student in the class. He said the burden often falls on the professors to adapt.
“It doesn’t really feel right, especially on Jeremy and Frasier because they’re having to do so much work outside of the hours of this class just to provide this experience to us,” Drouin said.
Despite these challenges, the class is preparing for another transition. According to Frazier, the honey bee labs are expected to move to the horticulture unit by the end of the year.
Instructors and students say they hope to see a permanent location dedicated to the class, one that can support future students and colonies without the constant threat of relocation.
“We’re just hoping that the construction kind of settles down and we’ll finally have a permanent spot to put the bees that we can depend on year after year,” Rose said.
For Frazier, the vision is a little more specific: a small piece of campus dedicated to the bees, planted with flowers and protected from future development.
