With that classification, beekeepers now are required to obtain a prescription for antibiotics from a veterinarian before they treat their hives. Food and Drug Administration’s Veterinary Feed Directive, which went into effect in January 2017, classified honey bees as food-producing animals, since they make honey. The more than 80 CSU veterinary medicine students who belong to the Honey Bee Veterinary Medicine Club are interested in something that goes beyond what is cool, or trendy. Other CSU students concerned about global sustainability are also using their creativity to protect the pollinators. If we didn’t have enough red flags about how the climate is changing, bees are another red flag.” “Bees are considered an indicator species. Their health is important for the health of so many plants,” said Geldert, adding that lately the health of bees has become a major concern in both the agriculture and environmental communities. But when bees move from flower to flower, they’re covered in pollen and they bring that pollen to the next flower or plant they land on, Geldert explained. They also pollinate crops that animals eat, like soybeans and clover, not necessarily on purpose. Each bee has to do its part so that the hive can function as its own ecosystem.īees pollinate up to one-third of the crops that humans eat. Each hive functions as a superorganism: Individuals have their own task but also contribute to the whole. The males don’t do anything but sit around and eat honey. “I became ‘queen bee’ on campus,” said Geldert, who is fond of bee-related puns.Īll of the workers in a hive are female, she explained. As an undergraduate at California Lutheran University, she managed bees on campus and helped educate people about their importance as pollinators. Geldert arrived at CSU with five years of experience in beekeeping. She is also the president and founder of the Honey Bee Veterinary Medicine Club at CSU, the first club of its kind at a veterinary school in the United States.

Haberecht is president of CSU’s Apiculture Club, which welcomes anyone interested in bees and beekeeping apiculture is the technical term for beekeeping.Ĭhristina Geldert, a first-year student in the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Program, serves as the club’s vice president.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said of the event held on Earth Day, April 22.

About a dozen students gathered in the early evening outside the Durrell Center for a “hiving,” placing honey bees in three newly built hives as part of the campus-wide initiative to educate the Colorado State University community about the importance of bees to our ecosystem.įreddie Haberecht, a freshman in the Warner College of Natural Resources, was beaming with enthusiasm as he carried a box of white beekeeping suits, helmets with veils and other supplies.

Queen bee puns