Students ‘buzzing’ with beekeeping knowledge at Little River Montessori

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - There’s a new part of the curriculum at Little River Montessori, and that’s beekeeping.

Students work once a week with the bees to do a hive inspection. There’s 10,000 bees in the hive. Samantha Cobb applied for a grant through Honeybee Tennessee in March and was awarded it in April.

“We want to reconnect our students with nature and that’s part of the nature that lives around us and respect the insects. Even though they may be a little scary. We have to respect them. And they were here quite a bit before we were,” Cobb explained.

The students have learned what the bees do.

“They’re basically grownups doing their jobs,” fourth grader, Paxton Lay, said ”Their job is to collect pollen from flowers and bring it back to their nest and basically like generate it through like different stages to make it to honey.”

Some students were a little scared at first, but are now learning the importance of the bees and teamwork.

Cobb planed to expand the bee hive program in the years to come.

The school may even get some honey, but that will take a little more time.

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