Category: Information

“Hacks and Techniques From an Experimental Beekeeper”.
Ryan Williamson of Sourwood Farm is a second generation beekeeper running a full time operation of 250 colonies with his family in Earlysville, Virginia. A proclivity to tinker and experiment has resulted in endless humbling mistakes but also occasional success. The presentation will focus on those tips, unique management techniques and equipment modifications that have proven useful in his operation with the hope that a few might be useful in yours.

Nucs vs. Packages: Common ways to start a bee colony and the pros and cons to both. Karen Palmer is owner of Honey Please bee farm which focuses on producing quality nucs and queens, bee removals, and other custom requests. Karen is “Queen bee” of around 300 colonies in Emanuel and Washington county. Former Regional Director for Georgia Beekeepers Association (GBA). Now studying native stingless honeybees in Central America where she has also worked with Africanized bees.

Janelle Dunlap is social practice artist and curator based in Metro Atlanta. As an encaustic painter and beekeeper, her art practice centers on sustaining healthy relationships between the human and animal worlds. Janelle is the inaugural Resident Beekeeper at Georgia Institute of Technology’s Urban Honeybee Project, where she is researching the healing properties of honeybee vibrational frequencies.

Bob owns Blue Ridge Honey Company and has a long history of sharing his great knowledge freely to local and far-away groups as well as his YouTube Channel. He will talk with us tonight about Issues With Old Comb and Toxic Interactions In Our Colonies.

Long time club member Ron Putman will discuss the swarm prevention technique known as checkerboarding.

Our next regular meeting (December 5th is the holiday dinner potluck at Dan’s house) will be January 2nd. Master Craftsman Beekeeper, Cindy Hidges, will discuss the importance of propolis.

2021 Georgia Beekeeper of the Year and accomplished builder, Kathy Bourn, will present Going Long, all about horizontal hives of various types.

Georgia Zumwalt is a Master Photographer & Certified Beekeeper from Jackson County GA. She serves the beekeeping industry as Secretary of the Georgia Beekeepers Association and President of the Northeast Georgia Mountain Beekeepers Association. She serves as a photographic educator, a State Representative for the elite American Society of Photographers, and runs the physical print division of the International Photographic Competition for the Professional Photographers of America. She’s had a camera attached to one hand and a coffee cup attached to the other for over 30 years and in 2018 she decided to periodically set the coffee cup down in order to manage a bee smoker. She began her photography career in the late 1980’s. One of her first professional jobs as a photographer was for the California Optometric Association. She was asked to photograph Folsom Prison (yep, the same one Johnny Cash sang about) for a story about the prisoners’ role in eyeglass production. Over the years her work has been used by the National Audubon Society, Estée Lauder, Kubota, FleishmanHillard and, as of 2021, her work is featured in the GBA “Save the Honey Bee” license plate campaign.

Dr Kate Ihle, is a Research Molecular Biologist at the ARS Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics & Physiology Lab in Baton Rouge, LA. She  will share some of their preliminary research results on social apoptosis and varroa mite resistance as well as introducing us to the other work they do at the lab.

This meeting will be in person with Dr Ihle Zooming in.