First, you have to go around the huge building A of the University of Paris-VIII, in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). Then, you have to walk along the fence that delimits the university site from that of the Frédéric-Bartholdi vocational high school, then tread on the strand of lawn that tries to survive among the surrounding concrete. When, suddenly, there they are: the hives of Paris-VIII. Three tiny and colorful houses sheltered in a small enclosure.
It is in this almost impossible to find corner that Marie Philémon, librarian at the university’s information, guidance and professional integration service for ten years, likes to train students to offer them an atypical experience: that of becoming, for two semesters, apprentice beekeepers.
Passionate about bees, Marie Philémon had the idea of proposing a tutored project in beekeeping, in 2017. It is included in the “So Skilled” program, which is deployed in the universities of Paris-Nanterre and Paris-VIII and aims to give undergraduate students human skills that can be used throughout their lives. “This is not a club to learn beekeeping in a professional waywarns Marie Philémon, herself a practitioner for a dozen years. The idea is above all to unite students around a concrete project and allow them to gain transversal skills, the famous “soft skills”. »
Combining theory and practice, the twelve sessions allow young volunteers to learn how to think in a group, but also how to observe a natural environment or even adapt to meteorological constraints. “Bees are only a way to address broader issues such as the link with living things or the protection of the environment”, analyzes the documentalist. But the passage to the apiary – a term which designates the three hives – is above all an opportunity to create a new link between the students themselves. According to Marie Philémon, there is always something going on around the hives.
Break the codes
She remembers, for example, a young boy concerned about his appearance who was reluctant to take off his sneakers and his jeans to put on the white coveralls of the beekeepers he found ” so ugly “. “Finding yourself in a beekeeper’s outfit breaks the codes a bit, the interactions are less formal”analyzes the one who is nicknamed “Mary the bee” in the halls of the university.
Léonard Decaux, 22, a third-year student in cinema at Paris-VIII, remembers these hours of beekeeping as an enchanted parenthesis. “When I went out with the beekeeper outfit, I felt very far from college, a bit like on vacation. To focus on this little community of bees and just take care of them for a few hours was really very calming,” he confides.
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