The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees recently named Pennsylvania 4-H member Zephan Samuel, of Butler County, the second-place winner of this year\u2019s National 4-H Beekeeping Essay competition. He earned a $500 prize as well as publication in ABF Quarterly, the magazine of the American Beekeeping Federation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a lot of fun and learned so much about bees while writing the essay,\u201d Samuel said. \u201cWhen I found out I got second place, I was surprised and happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The essay asked 4-H members to write about the importance of beeswax. \u201cOne thing I learned is how hard bees work to make even a small amount of what they produce,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For example, Samuel noted that honey\u00a0bees<\/a>\u00a0must gather nectar from about two million flowers to make one pound of honey. About 1,000 wax scales can make one gram of beeswax.<\/p>\n His essay focused on the versatile uses of beeswax by both bees and humans. Bees utilize beeswax in a variety of ways, including as a nursery and a pantry. When the queen bee<\/a> lays eggs, worker bees place the eggs in honeycomb cells made of beeswax. Bees also use beeswax to store honey<\/a> in these cells. By sealing the cells with beeswax caps, bees prevent moisture from entering and keep the honey fresh. This also ensures the honey remains safe from other animals.<\/p>\n \u201cMy interest in bees began quite a while ago when my mother was planting a flower garden,\u201d Samuel said. \u201cI saw these insects going from flower to flower and how busy they were. That\u2019s when I fell in love with bees. I learned a lot more about them, and my interest never dwindled.\u201d<\/p>\n Samuel said that his family shares an interest in\u00a0bees<\/a>. They have made candles, soap and lip balm together using beeswax. He said that making the beeswax products was challenging at first but became easier with experience.<\/p>\n His family also visits friends\u2019 apiaries to observe how humans support bees and how bees build hives and make beeswax. During these visits, Samuel said he witnessed bees capping honey and the behavior of worker bees toward the queen.<\/p>\n \u201cI live in the city, so I don\u2019t have bees of my own,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when I grow up and maybe have a place of my own, I might be able to have my own\u00a0bees<\/a>, honey and beeswax.\u201d<\/p>\n Karley Mishler and Amy Metrick, 4-H extension educators in Butler County, reflected on Samuel\u2019s accomplishment: \u201cIn Butler County 4-H we like to say, \u2018We grow great kids.\u2019 Zephan is a great example of this. Since joining 4-H, he has developed leadership skills, exemplified citizenship skills and participated fully in a wide range of project<\/a> areas. We are proud to have Zephan be part of the Butler County 4-H family.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to his bee-related activities, Samuel participates in 4-H clubs focused on robotics, archery, eSports and photography.<\/p>\n \u201cMy main goal is to inspire others to take an interest in bees,\u201d he said. \u201cHave fun learning about bees and enjoy what you\u2019re doing. Try to learn and grow as much as possible on the topic you\u2019re doing because then you can enjoy it for a long period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n Administered in Pennsylvania by Penn State Extension, 4-H is a nonformal educational youth-development program of the United States Department of Agriculture that helps young people develop<\/a> knowledge and skills to become capable, caring and contributing citizens. To find your local program, visit the Pennsylvania 4-H website at\u00a0https:\/\/extension.psu.edu\/ The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees recently named Pennsylvania 4-H member Zephan Samuel, of Butler County, the second-place winner of this year\u2019s National 4-H Beekeeping Essay competition. He earned a $500 prize as well as publication in ABF Quarterly, the magazine of the American Beekeeping Federation. \u201cI had a lot of fun and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7731"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7736,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731\/revisions\/7736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}