Resident beekeepers are buzzing with pride after harvesting more than 400 pounds of honey this year from the four hives located in the on-campus bee yard, beating the 2021 record by more than 100 pounds.
“Normally, it takes us about three days to process honey every year, but this year it took five days,” exclaims Winborne Chandler. “We labeled and bottled 800 jars of the 2025 honey yield and gave 14 quarts to our dining room to use in a variety of dishes. We’ve already sold more than 60 percent of the jars on campus.”
Winborne, along with her husband Chan, John and Jane Albright, and Ron Vinson, are among the original residents who became curious about beekeeping and its positive impact on sustainability. Together, they took a beekeeping class in 2017 at Colony Urban Farms (now closed). They attended the class for information only and left with two packs of bees. The Arbor Acres “Bee Team” was born!
A location for the bee yard was quickly identified and a fenced area was cleared near the head waters of Peters Creek, which helped establish a flight pattern for the bees toward a water source. The beekeepers bought all the needed equipment at auction, including a centrifuge to save on manual labor, and finally installed two hives in late May 2018, nurturing the bees throughout that winter. By June 2019, they were rewarded for their hard work and extensive research by extracting 200 pounds of honey in their first year of beekeeping!
Beekeeping is a year-round commitment, explains Chan. “It’s important to feed the bees a simple syrup throughout the year when blossoms aren’t blooming, especially during the winter. It’s easy to lose hives in the cold and wet months if you’re not attentive. But we spoil our bees—we make sure they have what they need when they need it!”
Other residents have joined the Bee Team along the way—Phil Perricone, Hollis Stauber, Tom Hunt, and Tom Davis.
When asked why he was so passionate about beekeeping, Ron responds, “In the course of learning about the need to help pollinators we study hard and get energized about helping the pollination process. We have even created a native garden in the bee yard for the bees. The elderberry plant has taken over, and, interestingly, that’s the flavor profile of the 2025 honey harvest.”
John adds, “Bee science and beekeeping is intriguing. Bees are highly organized. The male bees have one job, and the females do all the work. There are 20,000 varieties of bees, but there is only one kind of bee at Arbor Acres—the honeybee. And, it’s against the law to kill them, so we are doing our best to protect our hives.”
Each of the beekeepers has been stung in the course of caring for the Arbor Acres’ bee yard. How do they treat a sting? Without hesitation, they all call out, “fresh onion juice!”
Beekeeping not only connects the Bee Team to nature and one another but also reminds them that purpose and discovery have sweet rewards.
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From hives to jars, Arbor Acres’ Bee Team has the honey extraction process down to a science, sharing the sweet rewards of their hard work with the rest of the community every year. Honey doesn’t get more local than this
!
