We are excited to have a wonderful meeting planned.  We will start our meeting with Q&A followed by a nice presentation from Dr. Rebecca Krimins on how to continue your beekeeping education.  Our keynote speaker is the highly entertaining and educating Dr. Sammy Ramsey.

FEB 16, 2021 AGENDA (Zoom Meeting)

6:30pm Q&A with President Ryan Smith
7:00 pm Dr. Rebecca Krimins:  “Are You Maintaining Your Honey Bee Education?”
7:28 pm Drawing for a free signed copy of Bee Optimism: Translational Research Can Rescue Honeybees and Other Pollinators by Dr. Jay Evans.  This gift is offered by the author, who leads the USDA Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville MD.  Drawing will be done using a random number generator, since we are meeting online.
7:30 pm   Dr. Samuel Ramsey: “Varroa destructor Feeds on Bee Blood and Two Other Alternative Facts”.

Dr. Rebecca Krimins:  “Are You Maintaining Your Honey Bee Education?”
Rebecca will speak to AABA members and discuss educational options available to beekeepers that can grow their education and why beekeepers should be using at least one of these mechanisms (and preferably all of these mechanisms) to improve their skill level. Rebecca is the current AABA librarian.

Dr. Rebecca A. Krimins is a resident of Anne Arundel County and became interested in beekeeping while in graduate school.  However, due to time constraints and multiple international moves, she had to push off her pursuit of beekeeping until she settled in Anne Arundel County and became a member of AABA, signing up to take her first short course in 2017.  Since then, she has enjoyed backyard beekeeping with two hives located in Edgewater, Maryland.  During her day job, Rebecca is a veterinary anesthesiologist and Assistant Professor of Radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Samuel Ramsey: “Varroa destructor Feeds on Bee Blood and Two Other Alternative Facts”.
Dr. Samuel Ramsey  will speak on “Varroa destructor Feeds on Bee Blood and Two Other Alternative Facts”. Varroa destructor feeds exclusively on the hemolymph (or blood) of immature bees. It’s considered to be such an obvious fact that it often goes without citation now in scientific papers. But there is very little if any experimental support for this universally accepted conclusion.  Dr. Ramey’s thesis work, in partnership with the USDA and Project Apis m, has shown that Varroa are actually feeding on a very different tissue, the fat body, leading to a diverse combination of health impacts that have never been fully explained by feeding on hemolymph alone. With a better understanding of how this parasite impacts its host, we can develop novel forms of control and new methods to remediate the health issues common to infected colonies.