Rising Stars: Meet David Riera

As we grew into a professional development organization we became recognized by the state of Florida’s beekeeping association to “bee” the first of its kind, continuing our mission to expose and familiarize students in South Florida with the art of beekeeping. To make beekeeping available to the FIU community (students, veterans, faculty, and staff) as an alternative therapy for stress management. To provide resources for the improvement of beekeeping by using proven techniques and procedures in the management of honey bees and to share this knowledge with everyone interested in the art of beekeeping;to promote the development of practical beekeeping methods in South Florida. To act in the interest of student and master beekeepers in protecting and carrying on beekeeping affairs (learning and practicing the art of beekeeping). To act as a medium for and to aid in cooperative and mutual beekeeping methods. Act as the student representative of the South Florida beekeepers in state and national beekeeping affairs.

In 2019, a small group of us decided to become certified beekeepers through a new local course that did not continue after our cohort because the master beekeeper that lead the program had to focus on other aspects of their community work. Some of those certified members and I worked together to become an unstoppable “buzz”, beginning to grow away… to swarm away from FIU to find spaces/places to continue the work and create new community support connections not just with and for honey bees but for all pollinators.

We as an association were supposed to be supported to open an apiary on campus which never came to be (due to various speculative reseasons of course), students and community members who fervorously supported, worked through multiple plans and protocols to make the ‘Golden Panther Apiary’ a reality were left disheartend and dreamless. Nonetheless, we continued to buzz on campus then as we try do now where the majority of our work, education, and service has moved away from campus. Where the dreamless and disheartned, hive leaders, students, alumni, and more have helped us grow and thrive outside of the university toward becoming a nonprofit in 2023.

We have and continue to develop beautiful relationships in the community with regular people, public spaces, and private businesses who want to also learn how bee-keep and support the protection of pollinators in their yards and beyond. These are phenomenal individuals even the ones who try to put a price on our services even before we buzz over. We have a true opportunity to help inform the public and build lasting relationalities and reciprocity, not only with the public at large but with our relatives in nature; our pollinator brothers and sisters.

We have since co-created a curriculum that does not just ‘certify’ apprentices but the program stays with them and places them in charge of a public/private apiary as an alternative stream of income/experience service in the community. We have K-12 institutions reach out to us all the time for support where we  partner-up for workshops and other educational opportunities and service projects.

We do not just work locally; we have also been blessed to forge collaboration in Surrey, British Colombia with the awesome honeybee center, and on the west coast our work buzz has been amplified on the Beekeeper confidential Podcast through these experiences we strive to act locally but constantly think globally and support/represent how/where we can.

We have certified at least five (5) apprentices and currently have three (3) more in our one-on-one program. One of the highlights during the pandemic came through my direct mentorship of a Tropical Girl Scout (rising senior in high school) who truly flew the distance, during the pandemic she work with me and other association members to host virtual workshops and to co-develop a beekeeping badge program that is used in the Girl Scouts today.

This program was co-designed to raise awareness about bees and all pollinators and to engage the Scouts as rising pollinator protectors and emerging stewards in South Florida and beyond. This apprentice in particular was honored for her work with the Girl Scout “gold award” and since then, she has transferred to Davidson College in North Carolina where she still is involved in beekeeping and most of all pollinator education through theater.

If you are still reading, I will close with this beekeeping and pollinator protection is as much of a science as it has been and needs to continue being an art form (as our work in Miami Beach with the “Good of the Hive’s” Matt Willey would illustrate). Beekeeping in the US, in Florida, is like many spaces/places very white (but it is also very accepting and supportive, at least that is what I choose to believe). We currently have about six “community advisors” who are practitioner-advocates who support the association in multiple ways from our college org advisor at FIU to practicing beekeepers in South Florida and a few abroad. #beekeepersoftheworld unite!

But even the bees know that peoples of all colors need and can help take care of and champion them while they champion us. Like I tell all my learners, “Without bees (pollinators) there are no seeds”. Without seeds, there are no plants and we would starve and ecosystems would die out. Bee-ing in the community with a bee has helped me with my PTSD issues and I am hoping to work with local veteran serving organizations I have served in to also set up programming and illustrate how to regain or at least fight for mental/cognitive wellness while protecting pollinators and buzzing the bees!

David is a McKnight fellow, doctoral fellow, adjunct professor, bilingual writer, & environmental gladiator.

As a doctoral candidate in the Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Art, Science, and Education at Florida international university (FIU), he leverages his passion for research, conservation, and education to be an advocate for diversity and inclusion in the STEAM education. He holds six collegiate degrees and eleven professional certifications (from veterinary technician to open water deep-sea diver and agroecology) and two micro-credentialing badges in various STEM and industrial disciplines, which he utilized in partnership with scientific societal leadership to increase the presence and participation of underserved students/emergent professionals through activities and initiatives. His service in the United States Marine Corps as a combat veteran supported his efforts to be a first-generation Afro-Hispanic college graduate and has driven him to continue to serve in his community in numerous capacities. David fervently moves to raise public awareness through environmental and agricultural education, is relentless through his work tackling various social and environmental justice issues (like environmental racism, urban degreening, and food desertification), and is committed to co-creation, distribution, and preservation of cultural knowledge and inquiry-based research.

David’s primary goals as an environmental and agricultural educator are to implement inclusive and bilingual experiential educational programs and increase the representation of urban and minority practitioners (BIPOC, women, and veterans). Ultimately, enhancing community. knowledge, informing sustainable actions, and promoting pollinator protective efforts. Always remember, human survival is intrinsically bound to every buzz, bumble, and flicker of a pollinator’s wings–without bees… Without pollinators–our food & ecosystems will collapse bringing us down with them.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We started as a student-led, student-organized, community-serving organization which  adults do not often take seriously. We are hoping that at this point with the ‘adults’ who do take us seriously that we can build up the hive.

Even at FIU where they recanted their support for an on-campus apiary even after our members did all the due diligence and figured out and were approved for a liability plan. We hope that again our efforts in the community can serve to bring a piece of us back to FIU because a Goldened Panther Teaching and Stewardship Apiary sound like heaven. Students at FIU suffer from many forms of mental health why not provide another outlet for these students to gain nature therapy? We have suffered through human deaths in our hives and both from leaders and members which we honor today through our hive dedications.

Funding continued to be an issue on one end; for example, when we are called on by the community for swarm or hive rescues, they already have a “price” in mind. Most community calls come from wealthy neighborhoods (by the way), yet they think that they are doing us a ‘favor” with free bees thinking they are “freebies,” but at the end of the day, there is a modest cost to rescue bees (breaking that habit and educating the public while keeping them interested in doing the “right” thing is also a challenge because exterminator will charge upward of 500 USD to kill bees for example and we truly rescue them like a pollinator human society.

We continue to disrupt the connotations and speculative nature of the “Africanized” bees, especially as we co-cultivate Latino, Black, and Indigenous spaces changing the narrative and how the media/sciences/educational places present this, which is inflammatory and continue to place the community in harm and preventing people from building a relationship with the critical bee-ings. Even my mom told me to ‘remember that I was allergic to bees’ (I am not allergic at all, but it is how mothers are trained to protect their kids from the “Wild”). So, parents, please get your kids tested before telling them they are allergic to a world they could “bee” enjoying and protecting together.

Also, another funding aspect that has been trying to gain our non-profit status is being paid out of pocket from a small member collective and threw our rescue and apiary work. We get donations from time to time which helps us get gas and materials, but we need that status to apply for grants to support our members and be pollinator stewards.

The pandemic did cause a few challenges, but through our members who came together to bee-come leaders and innovators in the space, we did lean on virtual means but paired those with small unit collaboration and at-home experiential/kinesthetic activities. I would mention more challenges and obstacles, but let’s not dwell on those; let us continue to buzz and grow from those.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am many things, yet nothing at all. I am an Afro-Latino First Generation College Graduate who served in combat at a U.S. Marine and continues to serve my community as a scientist/researcher, as a (STEAM) teacher Y teacher of teachers, y as an environmental and educational gladiator to ensure that we are working toward a co-cultivations of spaces/places/norms that place justice, access, inclusion, diversity, and equity at the head of the table.

I am a son, a nephew, a godson, a brother, and a hermano, an advocate who stands shoulder to shoulder with other champions in this place and beyond. I am proud of my passion which is my apprentice(s)/mentee(s); as a Mentor, I can do and be what the individual needs me to be because I know what it is NOT to have that support system.

I am proud of everything I do, from fighting/working with legislators in DC and authoring OpEds to supporting other Non-profits across the US as either an Advisory Board member or an Executive board member. I love creating and co-constructing spaces and places for students (of all ages) and emergent professionals. If you ask me, “What I am known for,” I could not tell you, but my legacy will be a symbol for others that grew up like me, talked like me, roamed similar streets like me, and tried very hard to move from a survival mode to a thriving state.

I want to be known as a change agent and an agent of change for tomorrow… today! I wish to co-cultivate spaces and places where we belong and long-to-be, not just as tokens or furniture in the room but as respected members at the table. At the end of the day, I act like a doorman, but in my case, I keep my foot jammed to keep folx like us coming with the hopes that there will be no more doors to keep us out and that everything is simply by ways and flyways.

What sets me apart is this even with I become Dr. David Riera in a year or so. Or even if I became the President of the United States, Governor of Florida, Mayor of Miami-Dade County, and even a county commissioner. I am a person who leads from the front and is very community-centered. My Boots will always be on the ground, my fins will always be in the water, and galoshes will always be on/in the swamp (depending on the season). But always bee assured that I am one who is very communidad-centered y leads from the front.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up… Well, I am not done growing up, and honestly, I think I will never be. But that answer is very complicated and depends on how we look at it. But all in all, I was and continue to be a modern-day Samurai of sorts with a huge Sci-Fi taste, a Science and Social Studies nerd with an eye for arts, a poet, a swordsman, a futurist with a pragmatic process, a fighter, a philosopher, a life long learner, a FANatic from comics to magic the gathering and other collectible card games, a huge lover and learner of TV and pop-culture.

An extreme empath and lover of animals and nature. A baseball player and martial artist, my brothers’ keepers. A vagabond of sorts but a street scholar if we reframe the paradigms. Oh yes, and a hopeless romantic not just through the written word as a poet/writer but through the lens of my dad’s camera. Through mix tapes and songs. I love pizza like every good Ninja Turtle. Family first! But with air, the sea, and piracy coursing through my veins. I love to drive… even without a destination… my spaces are as busy as Indiana Jones’s office; people say clutter, I say artifacts… y eso fue nada mas the beginning, while growing-old is a biological consequence, “growing-up” is a choice one which comes in pulses and beats… y like I said before I think I would never like to be a “grown up,” but perhaps just a simple hue-men!