Pacific Northwest Treatment-Free
Beekeeping Conference
Science meets Earth-Friendly Beekeeping
July 26-28, 2013
The goals for this conference are:
1) To explore through science treatment-free beekeeping
2) To gain hands-on understanding of techniques
3) To build community
4) To make contacts and resources for support after you return home
*Register by July 1st for $20.00 savings!
Thank you to everyone who signed up early!
Venue
I choose Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, because of their commitment to sustainable practices, their location, their welcoming attitude towards every member of the conference-including our zesty little bee friends who will be joining us on campus for demonstrations-and their beautiful campus and accommodations.
Pacific University built the first LEED Gold certified dorm in the country. They do not sell bottled water on campus, but instead provide stations throughout campus in every building where you can fill your personal water bottle with filtered water. They are committed to contributing to their community and they serve food from local farms in their cafeteria whenever
possible.
Pacific University is only 30 minutes drive from Downtown Portland, 60 minutes drive from the Portland airport (PDX) and 60 minutes drive from the beautiful Oregon coast. For those arriving in vehicles, there is free parking at Pacific University. For those without vehicles, we have wonderful public transportation in Portland. From the airport, two hours and $2.40 will get you to campus. Take the MAX train Red line to Beaverton Transit Center and then hop local bus #57 TV Highway to Forest Grove. You can also catch the train from Downtown Portland.
Once on campus, you will stay in one of Pacific University's charming quads with the beds ready and made up just for you! Each building has a large meeting space. We are a dynamic, interesting, and respectful group, and I anticipate us having a wonderful time and that you will only be in your room to sleep. Each quad has 4 rooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen with a fridge if you want to bring drinks or snacks. They are comfortable, large, and airy, with air conditioning and windows that open. Quads will be shared. If you don't come with a group, I will choose quad mates for you. You will have your own room, unless you request to share with someone and they also request to share a room with you. (Shared rooms have separate beds, but feel free to push them together if you prefer).
You may bring your own alcohol but it must be kept in the rooms, gathering spaces, or patios of the dorms and may not be carried around campus.
Schedule
Friday
6:00pm-9:00pm Registration (also available Saturday morning)
Saturday:
6:30am-8:00am Registration
7:00am Breakfast
8:00am-9:00am Dr. Tom Seeley-Honeybee Democracy
9:15am-10:15am Kirk Webster-Making Varroa Our Friend
10:30am-11:30am Dr. Deborah Delaney-The Sustainability of Honey Bees: An Evolving Beekeeping Industry/Les Crowder Intro to Top Bar Beekeeping
11:45am-12:30pm Lunch
12:45pm-1:45pm Melanie Kirby-Rotational Grazing of Honeybees/Matt Reed Warre Beekeeping
2:00pm-3:00pm Dr. Sujaya Rao-Native Pollinator Research
3:15-4:15 Workshops
4:30pm-5:30pm Eliese Watson-Apiaries and Bees for Communities
6:30pm Dinner
8:00pm Bee themed concert by Timothy Sellers!
Sunday:
7:00am Breakfast
8:00am-9:00am Dr. Lynn Royce-Tree Hive Bees
9:15am-10:15am Dr. Tom Seeley-Honey Bees in the Wild/Les Crowder-Advanced Topics in Top Bar Beekeeping
10:30am-11:30am Kirk Webster-Breeding Bees for Non-Treatment/Dr. Deborah Delaney-The Sustainability of Honey Bees: An Evolving Beekeeping Industry
11:45am-12:30pm Lunch
12:45pm-2:00pm Workshops
Workshop Choices (choose 1 each day)
-Top Bar Beekeeping with Les Crowder
-Warre Beekeeping with Matt Reed
-Making nucs with Kirk Webster
-Making Honey Ice Cream with Dr. Lynn Royce (yummy!)
-Rotation Demos: Swarms with Dr. Tom Seeley, Mite Counts with Dr. Deborah Delaney, Queen Marking with Melanie Kirby
Speakers
*listed in the order they confirmed participation
Dr. Tom Seeley, Cornell University
Dr.
Seeley is a Cornell professor and author of the books "Wisdom of the
Hive" and "Honeybee Democracy". If you haven't read them-do! They are
fascinating and perfectly marry science, culture, practical applications
and fascinating information about bees.
For more information about Dr. Seeley, visit:
Kirk Webster, Champlain Valley Bees and Queens
Kirk
Webster is the nation's leading treatment-free queen producer. By
"leading" I mean first and best, not necessarily that he is the most
prolific. Kirk chooses to keep his apiary at a size that is manageable
for himself and one or two apprentices. He went treatment-free long
before anyone else and his apiary has been totally treatment-free for
over 10 years. I spent last summer in Vermont with Kirk and I can attest
that he is one of the few people in the world who is exactly what he
appears to be: a kind, wonderfully knowledgeable, grounded person who
lives his life with uncompromising integrity and care for his bees, the
earth, and humanity's future.
Kirk is someone I admire and respect tremendously, and I am so pleased to bring him to the NW so you can meet him too :^)
To read more about Kirk, visit:
Melanie Kirby, Zia Queen Bees
Melanie
Kirby has been a professional beekeeper for 13 years and has
specialized in raising queen bees for the past 11 years. She began her
career as a Beekeeping Extension Volunteer with the United States Peace
Corps after which she worked for two companies on the Big Island of
Hawaii learning grafting and queen rearing. In Florida, she learned
about nucleus and package bee production. Following these experiences,
she committed her energies and skills towards beginning Zia Queenbee
Company, a beekeeping enterprise that is progressive, innovative and
ethical. Melanie is a powerhouse of energy and information, and I am
greatly looking forward to meeting her next July! For more information
about Melanie and Zia Queenbee Company, visit:
Dr. Lynn Royce, Tree Hive Bees
Ok,
I gushed about Kirk Webster on the East coast and now I'm going to gush
about our own: Oregon's Dr. Lynn Royce. Lynn is simply amazing. She is a scientist, an inventor, and a person who cares deeply about pollinators and the planet. Lynn is involved in multiple projects to improve pollinator
health. She is currently engaged in a native pollinator bumblebee
research project. She is also starting what she calls her "Tree Bee"
project in which she is placing hives into trees and testing their
health over time. The premise of this project is that bees are not
evolved to live in concentrated populations on the ground as commercial
apiaries are run, but rather for colonies to be distributed over a
greater area and to live in trees.
All
that, and she is the only beekeeper I know besides me who holds a
pilot's license. Lynn is one tough lady in a teeny tiny package and I
think she is fabulous!
For more information about Lynn's Tree Hive Bees project, visit www.treehivebees.com
To hear about the hygienic queen freeze kill testing that I recently did with Dr. Royce, check out:
Eliese Watson, Apiaries and Bees for Communities
Eliese
is all about social creatures-not just bees but people too! Eliese runs
Apiaries and Bees for Communities out of Calgary. I met Eliese at the
natural beekeeping conference in Massachusetts last summer, and she is
one of those rare people who is both extraordinarily knowledgeable about
her subject, and also an outstanding educator. Not only that, but she
lights up a room, a conference, an apiary and the world with her amazing
spirit, beautiful smile, vibrance, enthusiasm and kindness. About her
business, Eliese says, "A.B.C
is dedicated to bringing small scale, hobby apiaries to urban spaces
through educational programming, mentorship, and community engagement
projects."
For more information about Eliese and A.B.C. Bees, visit:
Dr. Deborah Delaney, University of Delaware
Dr.
Delaney is professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at University
of Delaware. She has done some fascinating work on population genetics
of honey bees in the United States and genetic characteristics of
unmanaged honey bee populations. I can't wait to hear her speak about
what she has learned and how we can apply that to keeping bees
treatment-free!
For more information about Dr. Delaney, visit
http://ag.udel.edu/enwc/faculty/delaney.html
Les Crowder, For the Love of Bees
Les
Crowder has been a beekeeper for over thirty years. Over time, he
developed his own design for topbar hive and became a strong advocate
for natural topbar beekeeping, and he has been chemical free for over
fifteen years. Breeding queens from his resistant hives, combining
genetics from Russian Mite Resistant bees, and catching feral bees that
showed resistant genetics helped him to build his hive stock back to its
original size after he lost almost his entire apiary when Varroa
appeared. Les also spent five years as the NM Honeybee Inspector
and five years as the President of the NM Beekeepers Association. He
has been teaching beekeeping classes since 1983. In 2009, he received
the best instructor award at the NM Organic Farming conference. He is
well-beloved by students and colleagues alike for his love of bees and
nature, his gentle teaching methods, and his generous spirit. We are
very lucky that Les has agreed to join us in the Pacific Northwest for
our first treatment-free conference!
For
more information about Les and top bar hives, or his order his book,
which fellow speaker Matt Reed wrote to me is "the best book on top bar
hives out there," check out his website
at http://www.fortheloveofbees.com
Matthew Reed, Bee Thinking
Matthew
Reed is the owner and founder of Bee Thinking out of Portland, Oregon,
where he sells horizontal top bar and warre hives and teaches classes.
Matt writes, "the chief end of beekeeping should be to provide the bees
with the ideal environment in which to thrive. To do this, the beekeeper
must engross his or her mind with a wide range of bee-related
information detailing the bee lifecycle, history, hive design,
management and innumerable other topics of importance. Without this
knowledge, it is unlikely that the bees or the keeper will have success
in their endeavors. In addition to book knowledge, it is of utmost
importance that beekeepers spend time watching their bees. Not dousing
them with chemicals, moving them around, splitting them, marking them or
otherwise incessantly pestering them, but simply watching them. One can
learn a tremendous amount about the health and strength of the colony
simply by watching the entrance."
For more information about Matt or to order hives from him, go to www.beethinking.com
Dr. Sujaya Rao, Oregon State University
Dr. Rao is a researcher at Oregon State University who studies, among other
topics, native bee pollinators. She has a reputation for being a great
speaker and a lot of fun, and I'm very excited to hear about her
Fulbright program in Ecuador, where she is researching diversity and pollination by wild bees.
SPECIAL GUEST: Timothy Sellers
Timothy
Sellers from the band Artichoke will be joining us from LA on Saturday
night to play a set all about honeybees! For more info about Artichoke,
visit:
To watch a music video of their bee song, "The Commune" visit:
