Published: September 25, 2026
Buzz buzz!
Today is Honey Harvest Day—a twice-annual highlight for Pascack Valley High School’s 5-year-old beekeeping club, in northern New Jersey. And students are buzzing!
Inside biology teacher Kristen Lindstrom’s classroom, the school’s club members are scraping honeycomb and watching their amber harvest drip from a whirring extractor machine.
“That smells amazing,” says Lindstrom. It tastes even better. “This flavor profile is caramelly, like the cream in a Cadbury egg,” says student Derek Soto, as he thoughtfully licks a bamboo spoon.
Tasting honey!
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Total time: 0:00Beekeeping is a cross-disciplinary project. At heart, it’s all science, as students manage the hives’ health and learn how bees fuel the local ecosystem. But it’s also a bit B-school, as students and staff clamor to buy the $20 jars and candles.
“It’s liquid gold,” Lindstrom says.
To get started, Lindstrom worked with a local master beekeeper and her school nurse to write a plan for school board approval in 2019. Then, to pay for the hives and equipment, she won a $2,000 grant, funded by Sustainable New Jersey. “There are a lot of grants out there for people looking to start programs,” she promises.
What Happens on Honey Harvest Day?
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The first step? Testing the moisture level of the honey. Lindstrom and her students use a tool called a refractometer. With a toothpick, they smear a tiny bit of honey across a glass lens, and then hold it up to their eye to check its internal moisture meter. Anything under 18% moisture is golden. More than that and the honey may be fermenting—and then they're bottling mead, not honey.
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The next step? Carefully scraping the "cap" off the honeycomb inside the bee frames. The cap is beeswax basically, and the bees use it to seal their honey inside their combs. It is a delicate, careful task to scrap off the wax and not damage the comb.
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The next step is loading the decapped frames into the honey extractor, which looks like a washing tub. The extractor, which was bought for Lindstrom by her school administration, uses centrifugal force to spin the honey out of its frames.
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Before filling the jars, Lindstrom's students carefully apply their own "Pascack Valley High School Apiary" labels. Each harvest might elicit a couple hundred pounds of honey, which translates to a few hundred $20 jars. "It might sound like a lot, but when you're selling to 1,400 students and faculty? Guys, we don't have anymore!" says Lindstrom.
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The best part of honey harvest day is... tasting honey. Lindstrom's students are tuned into hints of spice (nutmeg? cinnamon?), and the presence of something they say is reminiscent of a Cadbury caramel egg. They compare this fall's harvest to their recollection of spring honey, which was more floral.
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Today, tens of thousands of bees live in hives behind a stockade fence—with windows—on school grounds. Does anyone ever get stung? Nope. European honeybees are sweet (no pun intended), non-aggressive flyers, plus Lindstrom and club members wear hooded, head-to-foot beekeeping suits.
The biggest issue is time. Every week, Lindstrom pulls frames and checks on the bees, even in summer. Still, beekeeping with students is “incredibly rewarding,” she says, because it engages them so much. “We’re competing with sports, sports, sports,” Lindstrom says, but club members show up, suit up, and talk endlessly with her about mites, tulip poplars, and more. “It’s an unbelievably tactile learning experience,” she says.
Why Bees? Kristen Lindstrom explains.
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