Awards & Honors

After a bountiful fall harvest from a garden extension to The City College of New York’s award-winning Solar Roofpod come the bees. The nationally recognized rooftop project designed by students in CCNY’s Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, under the guidance of Professor Christian Volkmann, is the recipient of a Sponsor-A-Hive grant of honey bees from The Honeybee Conservancy. It is part of the conservancy’s mission to save bees.

The grant to City College and its partner, the CCNY-based High School for Math, Science and Engineering, includes beehives, bees, a beekeeping suit, and a professional beekeeper to help set up the colony. Weather permitting, the colony will be in place by spring.

According to the Honeybee Conservancy, bees offer a wonderful way for children and communities to learn about science, ecology, agriculture, societal structure, mutual cooperation, and even history – all by caring for and observing the activity of bees maintained on an on-site bee house. Its innovative Sponsor-A-Hive grants enable people to safely set up, maintain, and observe on-site bee sanctuaries at schools, community gardens, and green spaces across the United States.

Bees are strategically placed in locations where they can bolster bee populations, advance science and environmental education, and pollinate locally grown food.

Located atop the Spitzer School of Architecture building at CCNY, the RoofPod was built by Spitzer students. It was envisaged as a solution to New York City’s energy and emission problems and placed second in the “People’s Choice Award” at the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2011 Solar Decathlon on the National Mall.