Al Renslow

Retired Schoolteacher

Al Renslow is a 74-year-old native Chicagoan and resident at The Admiral at the Lake, a Kendal affiliate and high-rise older adult community in Chicago. Al, a retired schoolteacher turned self-taught beekeeper, graduated from Purdue University Northwest with a Master of Education and has a Research Doctorate in Mathematics Education from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Driven by his curiosity for knowledge, Al embarked on a journey of self-education in 2019. Through his beekeeping studies and belief that we must be good stewards of the environment, Al discovered his calling for the next chapter of his life.

Al recruited fellow residents of The Admiral at the Lake to support the project to bring honeybees to the Life Plan Community. Al and his Bee Buddies set up their first hives in 2021 on the rooftop of The Admiral at the Lake. Today, Al and the Bee Buddies are in their fourth beekeeping season and oversee four wooden boxes housing 40,000 bees – expanding The Admiral’s population by 160,000 – that create exquisite-tasting honey due to the diverse native plants found in the city.

Last season, over 400 bottles of urban honey were harvested, bottled, labeled and distributed with the help of The Admiral community members who reside in the memory care residences, who volunteered to package the honey.