The Buzz on campus
There’s a sting in the tale for one section of the Environmental Society – looking after the university’s two beehives, tucked away in the Society’s wildlife garden.
Words: Greer McNally / Photography: David Vintiner
There’s a buzz outside the Ethos gym behind Exhibition Road, a murmuring of excitement coming up from one of Imperial’s hidden wonders. For lurking among the fruit, veg and flowers being grown in the Environmental Society’s wildlife garden are two beehives, each teeming with nature’s greatest pollinator: the honeybee.
The hives are the respons
ibility of head beekeeper Thaarukan Arunmolithevar (MEng Computer Science, Fourth Year). One of his primary roles, he says, is to monitor the bees’ battle against their natural enemies. “There are several predators, but it’s the wasps that are just so annoying. All they do is invade the hive to get the honey.” But he enjoys seeing the bees hold their own in these insect wars. “Sometimes when you open up the hive there will be a bee just dragging the corpse of a wasp away, carrying this bright yellow body through the air.”
The job – and how the bees react – changes with the seasons. In autumn and winter, the hives stay mostly shut to protect the bees from the cold. Then in the spring they are opened again as the temperature rises. “That’s when our inspections start,” explains Arunmolithevar. “First, we make sure that the hives have survived through winter and that they are still active. We also have to check that the queen is laying, the workers are healthy and that there are no signs of disease within the hive.” He’s also on the look-out for extra queens, as they can create anarchy in the hive and lead to worker bees leaving in a swarm when “their” queen is ousted.
If I’m having a conversation, there’s always a random bee fact I can bust out
Spring is a critical time to increase the population, but things can go wrong, as the previous Head Apiarist, Louie Yip (MSc Bioinformatics 2022), well knows. One year, when he opened the hives, both colonies had failed to survive the winter. “It was quite shocking at the time – and a little heart-breaking,” he admits. “I just wasn’t expecting it. In the end I had to order another hive and start from scratch.”
Yip did his training during the pandemic. “I had to learn most of the beekeeping stuff by watching YouTube,” he says. Since graduating he has gone on to work at the Francis Crick Institute, but he credits his time as Head Apiarist as changing how he sees the world. “There was a lot to discover – bee behaviour is fascinating. If my colleagues and I are having a conversation, I know there’s always a random bee fact I can bust out.”
Of course, the bees are just one part of the Society’s activity. In the wildlife garden, they grow tulips, carrots and wild onions, and look after the pond where frogs spawn each year. When not outside, they also host guest speakers to discuss issues around climate, conservation and sustainability, provide career insights in the green sector through careers fairs, and run sustainability workshops to demonstrate how to make your own eco-items, such as beeswax food wraps.
For Arunmolithevar, though, it’s all about the bees. His favourite part? Listening to the gentle buzzing of the hives. “The way that they move around makes such a therapeutic sound,” he says.