Our next AABA meeting will be held on May18th.

6:30  Open Q and A with President Ryan Smith.  This is an opportunity to ask your questions and get input from fellow club members.

7:00  Lessons learned from the MCBA Training Apiary, Maureen Jais-Mick
Maureen Jais-Mick, Manager of the Montgomery County Beekeepers Association Bee Yard, will speak on “Lessons from the MCBA Training Apiary,” including the yard’s purposes, apiary beekeeping philosophy, legal requirements, bee yard rules, and day-to-day management.

7:30 Beekeeping in Europe, Allan Storm
Storm will provide a discussion about beekeeping in Europe.  By late Middle Ages, beekeeping was well established in Europe due to the demands for wax and candles by the church.  Almost every region had its traditional form of housing for bees.  Some had hinged doors or open backs that could be covered until time to remove honey.  He will also talk about some of the European regulations and how they manage the threats of honey bee health, hive management, and honey quality control.

Maureen Jais-Mick is a member of the Montgomery County Beekeepers Association and has been a beekeeper since 2013. In 2018, she was tasked with managing the Club’s apiary in Wheaton MD. Since then, she has overseen upgrading of the facilities and also increasing learning opportunities at the yard.

Allan Storm:  As an avid connoisseur of honey, I have been fascinated by honey bees and beekeeping since my childhood.  I have traveled the world and been extremely blessed to have seen so many various ways of managing honey bees and tasted honey.  However,  it wasn’t until I settled down in Maryland, after retiring from the U.S. Marine Corps and returning from a DoD civilian job overseas, that I befriended a local beekeeper who starting mentoring me as I got my own hives.  He provided me “Beekeeping For Dummies” and my own beekeeping adventure began.  Besides keeping bees in Maryland, I have also kept bees in Europe, Belgium, where I started learning the science of beekeeping.  I have traveled and worked with bees in Spain, the Balkans and Turkey – where 1 in 200 people are beekeepers in Slovenia. The etymology of “Balkan” as a Turkish combination of “bal” meaning blood and “kan” meaning honey.  I have studied at the Beekeeping Academy of Slovenia and now have bees within Slovenian AZ hives.  I have completed the University of Montana’s online Beekeeping Certificate program which consists of three university-level courses at the apprentice, journeyman, and master levels, culminating in a certificate as a “Master Beekeeper”.   I also attended the 1st honey sensory training course taught by the Italian National Register of Experts in Sensory Analysis of Honey; developing methods of sensory analysis to taste and evaluate honey at an academic level.   And completed the 1st course in Natural Beekeeping taught by the University of Montana – integrating honey bee ecology into modern beekeeping.  With close to 50 hives I continue to enjoy the art, science and challenges of beekeeping.