GW is Buzzing with Honey Bees

It’s summertime and The George Washington University Undergraduate Honey Bee Research Laboratory and Apiary team is abuzz as usual.  For the past eleven years, we have been supporting (and delighted to learn from) this amazing undergraduate bee research team headed up by Dr. Hartmut Doebel. 

The GWU beekeeping research project focuses on different aspects of honey bee life and health, while providing a safe place for our urban pollinators. 

For the past 11 years, we have helped support: 

• 120 Bee Hives
• 5 Million Honey Bees
• 14 Undergraduate Student Beekeepers maintaining hives
• 46 Undergraduate Students researching bee behavior patterns and colony collapse disorders
• 2,500 lbs of Honey harvested & used in our restaurants and our distillery

Honey bees are essential to the diversity of our food chain. One out of every three mouthfuls of our food depends on pollinators, which also translates to 70 of the world’s top 100 crops being pollinated by honey bees, including potatoes, blueberries & most berries, broccoli, melon, avocados, many nuts, sesame, sunflower, apples, peaches, cucumbers, squash, grapes, tomatoes, and more. Almonds are entirely reliant on bee pollination. In the United States, more than $15 billion dollars worth of crops are pollinated by bees each year. 

Did you know these UnBEElievable Honey Bee Facts?

• One bee makes 1/2 teaspoon of honey in its entire life.
• Honey bees NEVER SLEEP.
• Honey bees wings stroke 200 times per second.
• Honey is naturally antibacterial and antimicrobial.

Every year, in early spring, we are invited to participate in the installation of new hives at GW, home of the largest urban apiary in DC. We sometimes visit just to see how the bees are doing, and sometimes we join the annual honey harvest.

We use the delicious GW honey in our restaurants and in our nearby distillery located inside our sibling restaurant, Farmers & Distillers, including in the previously released 264 bottles of our special GW Limited Edition Founding Spirits Amaro. 

To learn more about the GW Apiary, check out the GWBuzz website.