Category Archives: AABA Events



June 20th, 2023 Meeting Agenda

6:30 pm – Outside Hive Dive (Weather permitting) *Please bring your Personal Protective Equipment. We must insist that everyone at the hive dive wears at least a veil.
6:30 pm – Inside Q&A. Come spend time with your fellow beekeepers discussing bees and the crazy things they do.
7:00 pm – Club Business – AABA President Susan Beury
7:05 pm – County Fair Update – Cindy Loftus
7:20 pm – Apitherapy – So much more than bee stings! Elaine Storm
8:05 pm – Break
8:15 pm – Creamed honey – Dave Clark

Elaine Storm

We have been working bees for about 15 years. Although my husband is the main beekeeper, I do help work the hives, haveElaine Storm attended beekeeping courses and have the hands on training. I spend more of my bee time making lip balms, body bars, heel balms, etc from the byproducts of the hive. After attending EAS Apitherapy sessions, I’m now hooked on learning all about Apitherapy and how all the products from the hive can benefit us in health and healing ways. From making tinctures to bee stings to collecting recipes for healing. I love it all. My goal is to learn enough about Apitherapy to help relieve pain that people may be suffering from and to do that in an easy, less expensive and natural way.

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AABA May 16th, 2023 Meeting

Join us for our May AABA Meeting! It will be held Tuesday, May 16th, 2023 from 6:30-8:40 PM at Arlington Echo.
6:30   Hive Dive (weather permitting) // Q and A inside
7:00   Club Business
7:10   Skills Demo on walk-away and even splits

7:30   Break
7:45   Dr. Natalie Steinhauer: Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) Best Management Practices

BIP Best Management Practices

The Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help beekeepers keep healthier bees.  BIP works with beekeepers throughout the industry, from small-scale hobbyists to commercial beekeepers.  BIP conducts monitoring programs to document the health of colonies throughout the country, as well as research projects to investigate factors likely to impact honey bee health. In this presentation, Dr. Steinhauer will present the most impactful results from BIP surveillance programs, distilled with the lessons learned from Field Specialists through their years of experience working with commercial beekeepers. In short: this is the BIP list of actionable recommendations to improve your management practices.

Bio:
Dr Steinhauer is an entomologist specialized in questions related to honey bee health. Originally fromDr. Nathalie Steinhauer Belgium where she completed a Master in Biology, and following a Master Research in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation from Imperial College London (UK), she graduated from University of Maryland Honey Bee Lab and, since 2018, has acted as the Research Coordinator for the Bee Informed Partnership. BIP is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving honey bee health, by bridging the gap between science and stakeholders, contributing to, and promoting research on honey bee health and beekeeping management practices. In particular, Nathalie has collaborated in the production and analysis of BIP’s Loss and Management Surveys (2013-present), and several other monitoring programs organized by BIP and UMD. She is a self-described R-enthusiast, and beekeeper since 2009.

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April 18th General Meeting

6:30 Hive Dive if weather permits (bring your veil) or Q and A
7:15 Club Business
7:30 Break
7:45 Cody Ray: Moving to Sustainability: Making Splits

Making splits is essential as a beekeeper to use to maintain your hives, create brood breaks to reduce varroa levels, and allow you to procreate from your favorite queens.

Learn how Cody makes splits in his yard.

Cody Ray with a swarm

Cody Ray with a swarm

Brent “Cody” Ray was born in Arizona but grew up on military bases around the world. Cody joined the Army in 2007, where he met his wife, Michelle, and they married in 2009. An eclectic, he has Associate Degrees in Russian Studies from the Defense Language Institute and Intelligence Studies from Cochise Community College. However, he self-avowedly admits he just can’t choose a major for his Bachelor’s Degree. In 2020, after touring a friend’s apiary, Cody and his wife decided to add bees to their 1/4-acre urban homestead because gardens, berries, dogs, cats, rats, rabbits, and children just weren’t enough. Adding bees was a decision that blessed their lives immediately, helping Cody overcome deployment-related stress. Growing from 2 hives to 20, the only thing he admits to knowing is “not all that much,” but he is excited to talk bees and help anyone he can be a better beekeeper.

 

 

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March 21st, 2023 Meeting

Join us for our March AABA Meeting! It will be held Tuesday, March 21st, 2023 from 6:30-8:40 PM at Arlington Echo.

6:30   Q and A and club business, (too cold to do a hive dive).  Led by President Susan Beury 
6:45   Liz Mehalick: Beekeeper Injury Prevention
7:15   Break
7:30   Charles Kyler: Swarm Traps and Swarm Prevention

Liz Mehalick: Beekeeper Injury Prevention
Due to the nature of beekeeping, injury risk factors such as heavy lifting, high degrees of manual materials handling, twisting, and awkward positioning are commonplace. This presentation will stray away from the bees, and towards the health and safety of their human beekeepers. Liz will be applying her expertise on body mechanics and ergonomics to present on injury prevention in beekeeping. She will discuss ways to maintain beekeeper wellness when working with equipment by delving into injury prevention best practices and tips for working ergonomically.

Liz Mehalick, MS, ATC, CSCS, CEASll
Liz Mehalick is an athletic trainer that joined CIP Solutions as an injury prevention specialist inLiz Mehalick 2022. She is contracted with the nation’s largest utility company, Exelon, providing injury prevention, ergonomics, and health and wellness strategies to both field and office employees.

Liz graduated from Boston University in May 2021, earning her master’s degree in athletic training. Prior to her graduate studies, Liz completed her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Liz’s previous athletic training experience includes employment at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and clinical rotations at Indiana State University, Harvard University, and Simmons University working with Division I collegiates.

Charles Kyler:  Swarm Traps and Swarm Prevention
Tis the season to get your swarm traps ready.  With this year’s interesting weather, buckle up, it will be a swarmy spring.  Charles will speak to swarm prevention and building swarm traps for our yards.  This is a timely talk for all of us.

Charles Kyler Bee Bio
A
 resident of Howard County, Charles started beekeeping in 2017 after he and his wife completed a beginners course.  Before completing the course, he took over management of a nature center’s observation hive and outside support hives.

As an avid woodworker, he has made all of his equipment and has taught classes on the subject.  From the two packages he started with, his apiary count rose to four and then up to 40 hives. Charles Kyler

Charles uses traps to catch swarms, as well as using them for swarm removals.  Last year while doing an “intro yard” class, he had to switch gears to teaching a swarm class to catching a swarm, as a swarm landed on a fence post behind him.  What catching that swarm, another started to land two posts down.

He has caught swarms in Maryland as well as in Arizona, including Africanized colonies.  His passion for bees includes sharing his beekeeping knowledge and wordworking skills with others.  He is a longtime member of an an online bee wooden ware builders group that now numbers over 19,000 members world wide.

Charles has dabbled with queen rearing and even traveled to Arizona with a queen in his pocket.  He and his wife won Grand Champion at the Howard County Fair in 2019 for their creamed honey filled chocolates.  They started selling their honey in 2020.

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February 21st, 2023 Meeting

Join us for our February AABA Meeting! It will be held Tuesday, February 21st, 2023 from 6:30-8:40 PM at Arlington Echo.

6:30-6:50    Q and A, (too cold to do a hive dive).  Led by President Susan Beury 
6:50-7:00    Club Business
7:00-7:30    David Clark “First Spring Inspection”
Break for Social talk 7:30-7:40
7:40- 8:40   Main speaker  Pam Hepp “Spring management coming out of winter”

We will have our own David Clark showing us his Spring first inspection technique in pictures.  David has not shared this information since 2019 and it is definitely worth a revisit.

Our keynote speaker is Pam Hepp on “ Spring management coming out from winter”Pam Hegg.  Pam is an EAS Masterbeekeeper.  Pam says ” I am a former high school chemistry teacher, turned beekeeper in 2013.  I had a student taking over hives from her sister and I wanted my tomatoes to produce more, so I got honeybees.  I was hooked immediately.  The bees are fascinating.  I try to help the bees help themselves.

I’ve been active with the Montgomery County Beekeepers Association – as their outreach coordinator, Vice President and President.  I helped develop and have been a teacher of the MCBA online “Short Course” – beginning beekeeping course.”

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January 17th, 2023 Meeting

Join us for our January AABA Meeting! It will be held Tuesday, January 17th, 2023 from 6:30-8:30 PM at Arlington Echo.

Our agenda will be changed this month to allow Mr. Droege some extra time.

6:30 open Q and A with President Susan Beury
7:00-8:30 How to identify Native Bees Sam Droege.

We are thrilled to host Maryland native Sam Droege.

Sam Droege grew up in Hyattsville, received an undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland and a Master’s at the StateSam Droege  University of New York – Syracuse. Most of his career has been spent at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. He has coordinated the North American Breeding Bird SurveySam Droge Program, developed the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, the Bioblitz, Cricket Crawl, and FrogwatchUSA programs and worked on the design and evaluation of monitoring programs. Currently he is developing an inventory and monitoring program for native bees, online identification guides for North American bees at www.discoverlife.org, and with Jessica Zelt reviving the North American Bird Phenology Program.

As an aside, he is looking for volunteers interested in helping photoshop hi resolution photographs of insects…see http://www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/ and can be contacted at sdroege@usgs.gov,. In November Phil Frank showed us this impressive system to get those highly detailed photographs.

https://www.discoverlife.org/pa/or/polistes/

How to Identify Native Bees

Maryland has roughly 450 species of native bees and about 65 bee genera. Identifying everything to species is something that very few scientists can do. However, there are bees that can be identified to group, genus, and even species using just your eyes or a pair of binoculars. So get ready to broaden your bee horizons with new information.

We saw from Phil Frank in November the care used by Sam Droege to document the various bees and our honey bees with his special camera system.

Now learn to identify our Maryland native bees!

Reminder: We are still looking for someone to shadow Kim Mehalick, current Program Coordinator, this year and then take over as Program Coordinator for the AABA club. If you are interested please speak to Susan Beury or Kim Mehalick.

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AABA November 15th, 2022 Meeting

Join us for our November AABA Meeting! It will be held Tuesday, November 15th, 2022 from 6:30-8:45 PM at Arlington Echo.

6:30  Open Q and A with President Ryan Smith
6:50  AABA Club notifications
7:00  Elections
7:15  Phil Frank, session speaker 

Phil Frank will discuss the genesis of his co-authored new photobook “Hive Tour“, insights from his homemade observation hive, bee photography challenges and tips, and he’ll reveal the special, rare process used to capture the ultra-extreme bee closeups in “Hive Tour“.

Take-aways to include:

  • What does “Hive Tour” provide that’s missing from other bee books?
  • What behaviors can you see in an observation hive that you cannot in a field hive.
  • What are the design deficiencies with commercial observation hives?
  • Tips for better bee pictures with your phone.


Phil Frank will also have a limited number of “Hive Tour” books for $20 — 20% off the Amazon.com price (bonus: no shipping charge!).

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AABA October 18th, 2022 Meeting

Join us for our October AABA Meeting! It will be held Tuesday, October 18th, 2022 from 6:30-8:45 PM at Arlington Echo.

6:30 Hive Dive or Q&A Led by President Ryan Smith (weather permitting)
7:00 John Turpin, “The practical Bee Microbiome; What it does, the factors that influence it and how to keep the gut healthy(with or without Probiotics)”
8:00 “Stump the Beekeepers!”

Hive Dive and/or General Q and A Discussion
Honeybee HivesPlease bring your veil and protective gear if you are going on the hive dive. This will be weather dependent. There will always be beekeepers in the room to answer your questions. This will be the last opportunity for the hive dive this year.

John Turpin, “The practical Bee Microbiome; What it does, the factors that influence it and how to keep the gut healthy(with or without Probiotics)”
John is an Anne Arundel County beekeeper and runs roughly 100 hives.He started his beekeeping journey when he was accepted for an internship at the USDA BRL in Beltsville. While in college, he caught the bug and continued working there from 2013 until mid 2017. He then joined Healthy Bees LLC to perform field research on Pollen Substitute until the company’s dissolution in late 2021. He then joined the Strong Microbials, a company that makes probiotics for honey bees. He conducts field support/sampling, sales, and still gets to run an experiment from time to time. He has a BS in Environmental Science from UMBC.

John is an Anne Arundel County beekeeper and runs roughly 100 hives.He started his beekeeping journey when he was accepted for an internship at the USDA BRL in Beltsville. While in college, he caught the bug and continued working there from 2013 until mid 2017. He then joined Healthy Bees LLC to perform field research on Pollen Substitute until the company’s dissolution in late 2021. He then joined the Strong Microbials, a company that makes probiotics for honey bees. He conducts field support/sampling, sales, and still gets to run an experiment from time to time. He has a BS in Environmental Science from UMBC.

Hive Tour: The Insider's Guide to Honey BeesOur November meeting on Nov 15 will feature Montgomery County Beekeeper Phil Frank co-author author of the new book, “Hive Tour”.
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September 20th, 2022 AABA Meeting

6:30  Hive Dive or Q&A Led by President Ryan Smith (If doing hive dive please bring at least your veil.)
7:00  Who are the Mites Really Biting with Dr Zac Lamas

Followed by general Q and A.  Until 8:45.

Program:  Dr. Zac Lamas on ” Who are the Mites Really Biting?”

After hand sampling over 30,000 bees we have new findings on the seasonal distribution of Varroa in a honeybee colony. Come listen to the talk on Varroa biology, viral transmission and management.

Zac  Lamas is a postdoctoral researcher focusing on how Varroa feeding behavior drives viralDr. Zachary Taylor transmission in a honey bee colony. His current work uncovered how varroa are actively feeding and switching from one adult bee to another, and that relatively few mites are responsible for a majority of parasitized bees. During his PhD he was the recipient of the PAm-Costco award where he studied the vectorial capacity of Varroa destructor. He actively speaks at bee clubs and professional conferences, largely sharing information on beekeeping management. Zac previously worked for Michael Palmer at French Hill Apiaries in Saint Albans, Vermont. On the side Zac is the owner and operator of RockStar Queens. He produces quality nucleus colonies and queens in central Maryland.

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August 16th, 2022 AABA Meeting

6:30  Hive dive, or Q&A in room
If doing hive dive please bring at least your veil.

7:00  How to store your honey super frames  with Kim Mehalick

7:15 Break

7:30  Cybil Preston will be giving a talk on ” Hive inspections, and what to expect when getting an apiary inspection”

 

Cybil Preston is the State Apiarist/Chief Apiary inspector for the Maryland Department of Agriculture. She started as a hobbyist backyard beekeeper in 1997 and became a regional Apiary Inspector for the Maryland Department of Agriculture in 2004.  She’s a former president of the Susquehanna Beekeepers Association.  Cybil continues to educate new beekeepers by teaching the short course for Susquehanna Beekeepers in conjunction with Harford Community College.  In 2013 she became an EAS certified Master Beekeeper in 2013 at West Chester College. She was promoted to the State Apiarist position for the MDA in 2014 and is responsible for 13 counties during the season and the whole state during the off season.  In 2015 Cybil trained with the Maryland Department of Corrections and Public Safety along with her Dog Mack to become certified in American Foulbrood disease detection.  In 2018 she trained a second dog, a springer spaniel named Tukka.  Mack and Tukka are currently the only certified American Foulbrood detector dogs in the United States.  In addition to working her own honeybee colonies, Cybil enjoys spending time with her family which also includes her 4 dogs and her 5 senior miniature donkeys and 3 goats.

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