#SoCaltech: Cullen Quine

“I’m very environmentally conscious. Even my hobbies are environmentally focused, so keeping bees is a natural thing to do. It’s a lot of fun and gets your mind off research pretty quickly. When you’re opening a hive, there’s very little else you can focus on than the bees in front on you. There’s something really fascinating about an animal that is pretty simple on an individual level, but in a hive, they can build a complex honeycomb that changes depending on their needs. When the bee population is large, the hive makes drone cones, huge honeycombs for the male bees. If you move those to the outside of the hive, it’s too cold for the bees to put brood in them, so they’ll store honey in them instead. So, you can communicate with the hive and tell them what you want. It’s almost like programming. It’s a technical hobby.”

Cullen Quine, a graduate student studying materials science, rescues unwanted beehives with his brother and relocates them to their family home in Malibu. The Quine brothers sell the fresh honey on the Caltech Marketplace to help fund their hobby.

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.