NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HAVEN, Kan. — According to Haven Grade School Principal Laurel Scott, the process of starting a Bee Club at the school is taking flight.
"What I love about it, is that it is completely student led," Scott said. "This started at our Farm to Fork day, which we have every fall. We had some students from Prairie Hills Middle School in Buhler come. They actually have a Bee Club, too, so we had some students who were inspired by that. Then, again at our Haven Fall Festival, we had Marcus and Jami Richardson from Richardson Tree Service, they have bees, and we had a small group of students who sat and listened to them talk about bees. They approached one of our teachers and said, Miss Krol, we really want to have bees and we think we can do it."
The Bee Club will be for 4th through 6th graders at the school.
"It's something that I've really wanted to do for a while," Scott said. "When it's student led, it just kind of takes off a little bit better. We've applied for three grants. One of them has been fully funded. We're waiting to hear about that, but we've met with Marcus and Jami Richardson, the students have spoken to the middle school, they've spoken to the neighbors, they've spoken to the school board and then, most recently, they presented their idea to the Haven City Council, to ask for some changes or exceptions to the city code. I think that the city council is working with us to keep bees on our school property, so it will be really, really neat."
Getting the red tape cut and the funding in place may take a little bit.
"We will get our hives and hopefully have them off the ground and up and running this spring," Scott said. "We have our first meeting on Monday, Dec. 4. We're really just going to start learning about what it means to keep bees. Everything that I've learned so far is that it's not just a set up the hive and walk away, which is kind of what I thought it was at first. I definitely think it's a labor of love."
The Bee Club will meet monthly to start as they get up and running.
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