Column, Meet Colony

During the buzz of move-out in May, new arrivals to campus were settling in, or onto, an iconic white column on Reckord Armory. It’s common for a honey bee swarm, led by a freshly hatched queen, to split from an overcrowded hive each spring. But this unusual location about 24 feet high required UMD Apiary Manager Eric Malcolm to get certified by Facilities Management to use a lift to remove the 30,000 bees. In late June, he spent hours in the sun, slowly extracting pieces of comb to place into a hive box as golden honey dripped down. Today, the colony is thriving among the UMD Bee Lab’s 42 hives.