September Membership Meeting

When
September 13, 2022
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (EDT)
Location
Wake County Commons Building, 4011 Carya Dr, Raleigh, NC 27610

7:00 pm - Workshop: NCSU Endowed Professorship
The North Carolina State Beekeeping Association and North Carolina State University (NCSU) are continuing on a journey to create and maintain a first class honey bee research program. The new Apiculture field laboratory and an endowed professorship will both be major elements of this effort.

Rick Coor, 1st Vice President of the NC State Beekeepers Association, will be with us to explain the NCSBA project to establish an endowed professorship in apiculture at NCSU. He will also describe the vision of how these projects will evolve into other programs that support our beekeeping community. More information on the endowed professorship project can be found here.

7:30 pm - Queen Genetics, Selective Breeding and Tom Seely’s Darwinian Beekeeping - Betsy Spencer
Productive queens are critical to a strong and flourishing colony. Many pests and diseases threaten the health of our bees and we are always chasing the next silver bullet that will guarantee the survival of the colony. Queen producers do their best to add to the arsenal by selectively breeding for characteristics such as mite resistance. Mother nature has been selectively breeding for millennia. Maybe it is time to see if she can teach us a better way.

Betsy Spencer will discuss Dr. Tom Seely’s protocol of Darwinian Beekeeping. She will discuss selective breeding to improve genetics for resistance to pests and diseases. Betsy will also describe her techniques for raising queens to support her selective breeding projects.

Betsy’s journey in beekeeping began in the summer of 2003 when her garden yielded misshapen cucumbers. Betsy spent the winter reading about beekeeping and in the spring of 2004 took the beginner beekeeping course offered by Wake County Beekeepers Association. She shadowed Jack Tapp at Busy Bee Apiaries in Chapel Hill and ran his queen operation for several years. Her goal continues to be raising bees that are locally adapted to the area and have resistance to the varroa mites by using only non-chemical treatments and breeding from survival stock. Betsy is partnering with Terry Wright to take the concept of survival stock to the next level by following Dr. Tom Seely’s protocol of Darwinian Beekeeping.

A Chapter of the NCSBA

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