Osher beekeeping class shows how bees benefit the community

Most people have heard the saying “busy as a bee” to describe a very industrious person. The expression refers to honey bees, valued for their honey, wax and their supreme ability to pollinate.

Volunteer Osher Lifelong Learning instructors Dean Hoover and Tom Lord are busy as bees teaching Osher members the inner workings of the life of the honey bee. Students have learned about the life cycle of the bee, how they communicate, how they benefit humans by pollinating flowers, gardens and crops, and how beekeepers extract honey from the beehives.

The students got the opportunity to view a working hive built by Hoover at Cadbury, a retirement community in Lewes, and taste the honey collected from that hive. The hive is located so the bees can maneuver in and out through plastic tubes and into the glass-paned observational hive. The hive has not only been educational for the Osher students but also for the many visiting grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Cadbury residents.

Now complete, the course has evolved into a special-interest group that is currently planning to build a working hive in Georgetown.

Featuring a wide variety of learning opportunities for adults 50 and over, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Delaware in Lewes and Ocean View offers 10-week semesters in fall and spring and a four-week June session every year. Classes are held at the Fred Thomas Building, 520 DuPont Ave. in Lewes and the Ocean View Town Hall and Community Center in Ocean View.

For more information, call 302-645-4111 or go to www.lifelonglearning.udel.edu/lewes. The University of Delaware also sponsors Osher Lifelong Learning programs in Dover and Wilmington.