Bees are living the sweet life at UVA Northern Virginia

Celebrating its first fall semester, the University of Virginia’s Northern Virginia campus is buzzing with excitement – no one more so than beekeeper and Dean Greg Fairchild and the campus’s two beehives.

Occupying part of a 117-acre campus in Fairfax, UVA Northern Virginia officially opened in March, offering graduate and professional degree programs from several University of Virginia schools. It is home to lots of wildlife, in addition to two hives of an Italian breed of European honeybees.

Claire Sherwood, an urban beekeeper at Alvéole, manages the hives and harvests the honey, checking in every three or four weeks to make sure the bees are healthy and happy. The hives are made up of three wooden boxes, the top two ones used for honey production and harvesting.

Claire Sherwood weating a protective mask and holding some bees

Urban beekeeper Claire Sherwood says one of her favorite things about bees is that there is a designated bee that buries dead hivemates. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

The bees get to work as soon as the flowers bloom and, by the end of summer, the honey is ready for harvest. The two hives produced so much this year, Sherwood had to come back twice to harvest.

“It was probably over 100 pounds of honey in total, because they’re on the ground and have this beautiful forest behind the campus. There’s so much flower production they can use to make so much honey,” she said. “They can make up to two to three times more honey than they actually need, so we harvest the extra.”

At the campus’ official opening earlier this year, she gave out more than 200 small jars of honey and information about bees to guests. “One of the biggest misconceptions about bees is that they are predominantly male, but they are actually 90% to 95% female,” she said.

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The presence of the pollinators can be traced to Fairchild, a newcomer to beekeeping during his time in Charlottesville.

“About a decade ago, it was hard to miss the news stories about the importance of pollinators to our agricultural system and how many were disappearing,” he said. “I started out with a nucleus hive a colleague, Tim Laseter at the UVA Darden School of Business, helped me get started. That first hive was real learning as I was unfortunately overcome by beetles.”

When UVA began operating out of Darden’s Rosslyn location, Fairchild noticed two hives at Freedom Park, attached to the building. When he asked the landord, he learned a company called Alvéole managed them. This is is how two different hives came to the Fairfax outpost, once UVA Northern Virginia’s 55,000-square-foot campus was completed at the Inova Center for Personalized Health complex.

Greg Fairchild taking the lid off of a bee hive

Fairchild hopes the bees will bring alumni and other visitors to the campus. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

The campus is also host to native bees, like carpenter bees that occupy a cherry tree near the honeybees. Sherwood set up wooden boxes with bamboo tubes inside for native pollinators to lay their eggs inside.

“So, we’re not only supporting the honeybee, which technically is not native to the Americas, but also encouraging carpenter bees and leafcutter bees, which are,” she said. The campus is also home to several other species, including deer, foxes, rabbits, butterflies and various songbird species.

Fairchild said the team intends UVA Northern Virginia to feel like “more than just a corporate campus” and has made efforts to assist in helping it feel like a gathering place where the UVA community, especially alumni, felt they were invited to linger. “They’re invited to enjoy the six miles of walking trails, work here and spend time out on our patio,” he said.

Close-up of a tray of Italian honey bees

This Italian breed of honey bees is bred to be friendlier, according to Sherwood. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

“The bees also give us an opportunity to contribute to what happens in this community, not just rent here,” Fairchild said. “They’ve also been a great bridge between us; our landlord, Inova; and the surrounding community.”

Community members are always welcome to join Sherwood on her regular visits to the hive, the dates of which are advertised on the campus’ website.

“I get a mix of so many different people coming to my hives, from nurses to doctors to students,” she said. “I’ve gotten up to 30 people at one of my hives at once.”

The campus has been offering classes since the beginning of the year and is focused on workforce education. “We want to be a part of an anchoring system here so that people could get the extra education they need at the stage of their life without having to pick up and move to Charlottesville if they can’t or don’t want to,” Fairchild said.

Media Contact

Jane Catania

Associate Director of Communications UVA Northern Virginia