With a growing student body, it’s no surprise that activities at De Soto High School are filling with eager students who want to express their passions and abilities with their peers. However, some students are finding unique hobbies and opportunities in which they can thrive and excel in outside of DHS’s clubs and sports.

For example, junior Robby Stallbaumer is involved in cross country at DHS, but that’s not all he does. Stallbaumer’s family recently found an interest in beekeeping.

“This is our first year [working with bees],” Stallbaumer said. “My brother just decided that he wanted to try [beekeeping], so me, my dad, and my uncles decided to try it, too.”

Most people wouldn’t jump on such a new and unexplored opportunity, but Stallbaumer’s family found it relatively easy to get started.

“We ordered the bees and put them in the hive,” Stallbaumer said. “In the beginning, we fed them sugar water. Now we just let them do their thing.”

It wasn’t too difficult to get the bees, either.

“My dad, my brother and two of my uncles ordered bees online. It was three pounds [of bees],” Stallbaumer said. “One of my brother’s buddies had a swarm in his backyard, and we caught them for my hive. So my hive was completely free, but [my family] had to pay for theirs.”

A typical box of bees can cost anywhere from $80 to $200. Most beekeepers might also be buying hives for $200 each for their swarms to live in. However, Stallbaumer’s family’s handiwork helped them save money.

“We built the actual hives that we put them in,” Stallbaumer said. “We built those all from free lumber that we took down from a building.”

When most people think about bees, they think about two things; the first being honey.

“We’re not really harvesting much the first year because we want them to get situated,” Stallbaumer said. “We accidentally harvested some [honey], though. We were looking through the hives, and some of the comb fell off, so we accidentally harvested some.”

The second thing that most people think about when they hear “bees” is, of course, getting stung.

“We haven’t really gotten stung. My brother got stung when we first picked [the bees] up. You only get stung once, every once in a while,” Stallbaumer said. “[For protection], we only wear the hoods [over our heads]. We wear hoodies sometimes.”

Stallbaumer summarized his experience with beekeeping in a very positive way.

“I like [beekeeping]. It’s relatively easy. It’s fun, something new, something fun to do,” Stallbaumer said. “You don’t get stung as much as you think you’ll get stung, and the honey tastes a lot better than store honey.”