Beekeeping inspires Kennewick student, helps him inspire others

Fifth-grader Jonathan Jefferson, 10, bedecked in his beekeeping suit in front of more than 200 fourth- and fifth-grade students at Kennewick’s Canyon View Elementary School on Friday, asked some teachers how many bees they thought were in a single hive.

Ten thousand? Way more than that. Twenty thousand? No. One teacher, egged on by her students, said she didn’t think it was a million and guessed 10,000 again.

“There can be one million bees in a hive,” Jonathan finally said to the raucous amazement of the crowd.

There’s not much Jonathan, who has maintained his own hives for the past three years, doesn’t know about bees. And there’s nothing he likes to talk or read or learn about more than bees.

“I just seem to like them,” he told the Herald as he worked with his father, Dale Jefferson, to prepare his hives for the winter.

While he’s earned spending money from the honey he sells, his parents and teachers see intangible benefits. It’s given Jonathan and his father something to bond over. It motivates him to keep reading and searching for any information he can, despite his dyslexia.

And while also igniting his interest in learning, it can do the same for students who see what one of their peers is capable of.

“It’s very much about the kids being encouraged,” said Deborah Shay, Jonathan’s teacher. “A lot of them would never get to see this.”

Jonathan’s interest in beekeeping started simply enough, with his father just wanting to pollinate his apple and other fruit trees on his property in Finley.

But then one hive became two, and then three. Now Dale Jefferson maintains anywhere from 30 to 40 hives, shipping them around the region to help farmers pollinate their crops.

“Yeah, my original idea was I needed a hive,” Dale Jefferson said, chuckling.

While Jonathan’s hives also help pollinate crops in the region, they are separate from his father’s. He’s built them up on his own, dividing them and raising new queens.

His plan was to have six before the winter. He wasn’t able to establish new queens fast enough, though his hives look good after looking through each box hive’s honeycomb frames, his hives look good. Long-term, his plan is to have more than double the hives his father has by the time he’s 16.

The honey Jonathan produces, sold under the name of War Pony Farms, allows him to buy what he likes at the county fair each year, Dale Jefferson said, “but he usually asks, ‘How many boxes can I get for this? How many frames can I get for this?’ ”

When his teachers learned years ago that Jonathan kept his own bees, they began asking him to do presentations to classrooms as part of a lesson, said Jonathan’s mother, Angie Jefferson. That soon spread to requests from other schools in the Tri-Cities.

“If you send in a grown-up (to do a presentation), students aren’t as interested in it because they don’t think they can do it,” Jonathan said. “But if you send in a kid, it gets them interested.”

Angie Jefferson appreciates how supportive Canyon View has been of her son’s bee fascination, noting that his teachers at the school have sometimes incorporated bees into lessons or activities to pique his interest when his dyslexia might otherwise discourage him.

But it’s also been a great experience for her son, who is interested in becoming a scientist someday.

“It’s just been great for him to know he can succeed,” she said.

Jonathan appeared to take it all in stride Friday, smiling as he navigated the sea of raised hands waiting to ask questions.

This story was originally published October 16, 2015 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Beekeeping inspires Kennewick student, helps him inspire others."