Honey Bee Initiative

Faculty and students at George Mason University are conducting impactful environmental research with the help of the Business for a Better World Center's Honey Bee Initiative.

The Honey Bee Initiative and the Sweet Virginia Foundation are kindred spirits in educating about the importance of the honeybee in an effort to make the world a better place. 

Faculty, staff, and students from three units across Mason have worked together to create a new VR experience so elementary students can take a “field trip” to the Mason apiary and learn from an expert beekeeper.

An article in the Fairfax County Times explains the Honey Bee Initiative’s Hive Alive project.

For the past decade, Mason alum Germán Perilla, cofounder and director of the Honey Bee Initiative, has led Mason’s honey bee efforts.

It wasn’t until 1972, during a United Nations conference in Stockholm, that the nations of the world formally announced what was already self-evident to most—human activity was detrimentally impacting the environment, and in turn, threatening our future prosperity. Nearly 50 years on, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Amissville, Virginia, just west of Warrenton, is about a 90-minute drive from Washington, D.C. Interstate 66 is the Achilles Heel of area commuters, but the silver lining is that it leads here—to this bucolic setting and to Hinson Ford Cider & Mead. Dennis Kelly (BA English 2012, MS Technology Management 2015), his wife Mary Graham, and business partner Dave Shiff opened Hinson Ford in September of 2018.

There is so much more to honey bees than producing honey, and at George Mason University, nobody knows that better than the team at the Honey Bee Initiative.