Here’s the schedule for the 2017 GBC (subject to change)
Conference Date: Saturday, March 18, 2017
8:15am-8:45am Arrive, Check In at Registration
8:45am-9:00am Welcome, Review agenda
9:00am-9:55amDr. Dewey CaronSome Good News About Bees
9:55am-10:15amBreak20 minute break - Refreshments and Vendors downstairs
10:15am-11:00amMB Kent WilliamsReducing Chemical Dependency: Feasible or Not?
11:00am-11:20amBreak20 minute break - Refreshments and Vendors downstairs
11:20am-12:05pmDr. Dewey CaronReading Brood Frames - Interactive
12:05pm-1:15pmLunch
Downstairs - Purchase your lunch ticket when registering
Lunch is sponsered by Mann Lake.
First raffle drawing starts after lunch
1:15pm-2:10pmMB Kent WilliamsEvaluating Queens & Their Pheromones2:10pm-2:30pmBreak
20 minute break and raffle drawing
Second raffle drawing starts after break
2:30pm-3:15pmMB Frank LicataManaging Your Hives Thru the Seaons3:15pm-3:35pmBreak
20 minute break, Silent Auction & Vendors End After Break
Third raffle drawing starts after break
Honey swap starts at 3:25pm
3:35pm-4:30pmDr. Dewey CaronReading the Hive - Do we always need to open it?4:30pm-5:15pmPanel Q&APanel Q&A - Dr. Dewey Caron, MB Kent Williams, MB Frank Licata5:15pm-5:30pmIn ClosingClosing Remarks, remaining raffle items - Head to Evening Social6:00pm-8:30pmEvening SocialCocktails and heavy horderves/light dinner at Wicked Waters
Purchase Evening Social Ticket when registering
***MB = Master Beekeeper, Both MB this year are certified by the Eastern Apiculture Society.
Here’s the schedule for the 2016 GBC (subject to change)
Conference Date: Saturday, March 19, 2016
8:15am-8:45am Arrive, Check In at Registration8:45am-9:00am Welcome, Review agenda9:00am-10:00amTom SeeleyThe Honey Bees of Arnot Forest: Wild Bees surviving despite Varroa10:00am-10:15amBreak15 minute break - visit the vendors! Then move to seminar rooms.10:15am-11:00amSeminar 1aJim Ochterski – Labeling honey Seminar 1bFrank Licata - Honey Bee Nutrition and why its important11:00am-11:15amBreak15 minute break - Move to main conference room.11:15am-12:15pmMike PalmerKeeping Bees in the North12:15pm-1:15pmLunchDownstairs - Purchase your lunch ticket when registering
Lunch is sponsered by Mann Lake LTD.1:15pm-2:15pmTom SeeleyFollowing the wild bees: Craft and science of bee hunting2:15pm-2:30pmBreak15 minute break and raffle drawing2:30pm-3:15pmSeminar 2aFrank Licata - How to deal with SHB and Wax moths Seminar 2bShelley Stuart – Mead3:15pm-3:30pmBreak15 minute break and raffle drawing3:30pm-4:30pmMike PalmerTalk 24:30pm-5:15pmPanelPanel Discussion - Tom Seeley, Mike Palmer5:15pm-5:30pm Closing Remarks - Check out the vendors6:00pm-8:00pm Cocktails and heavy horderves/light dinner at 3 Brothers Winery
Purchase Evening Social Ticket when registering
2015
Dan has been a beekeeper & queen producer in West Virginia for many decades. He is an officer in his local bee club and the founder of the West Virginia Queen Producers, an organization dedicated to supporting local queen producers. Dan led the effort to pass the first bill in the nation granting beekeepers immunity from civil liability. Dan was selected as the 2011 Beekeeper of the Year by the WV Beekeepers Association.
Roberta Severson
Extension Associate
Cornell University
Roberta “Bobbie” Severson is Director of the Cornell University Cooperative Enterprise Program. The program focuses on conducting research and providing education and information about cooperative-structured businesses in the farm and food sector. She serves as the Executive Secretary of the Northeast Cooperative Council, an organization of agriculture and finance cooperatives headquartered or doing business in New York State, Pennsylvania, and New England. The NECC provides professional development for cooperative directors and senior level management. Prior to coming to the Cooperative Enterprise Program, she was an Agricultural Economic Development Specialist at Cornell Cooperative Extension, Seneca County and the Agriculture and 4-H Program Leader at Cornell Cooperative Extension, Onondaga County. She was a co-managing partner on her family’s dairy farm in Marcellus, NY.
Peter L Borst
Cornell University
Peter Loring Borst has worked in the beekeeping industry since his first job working as beekeeper’s helper in Wolcott NY, in 1974. Peter was Senior Apiarist at Cornell’s Dyce Lab for Honey Bee Research for seven years. He was an apiary inspector for New York State from 2006 to 2008. He hold the office of vice president of the Finger Lakes Bee Club and is a regular contributor to the American Bee Journal.
2014 and Earlier
Dr. Dick Rogers, Entomologist/Manager
Bayer Bee Care Center, Bayer CropScience, North Carolina
Dick has been keeping and studying honey bees, and has been a professional Entomologist for 40 years. During the 1980’s he received his Masters of Science degree in Entomology/IPM from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He was a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturist for many years, and is now a current member of the American Beekeeping Federation.
After many years as a beekeeper/consulting entomologist/contract researcher, and as an extension entomologist/apiculturist, Dick started with Bayer in 2009 as a Principal Scientist/Entomologist in Ecotoxicology. He is now Entomologist/Manager of the Bayer Bee Care Center for North America where he is both an internal and external resource and educator on bees and apiculture. He works to identify, develop and evaluate tools, products and management for protecting and improving honey bee health.
Dick got into beekeeping in 1973 after taking an introductory course from the late Gerry Smelter. Gerry worked for Agriculture Canada at the local research station and was a leading educator and mentor for beekeepers in eastern Canada. Dick’s other apiculture and entomology mentors were Harold Specht, and the late Edel Karmo and Vernon Vickery. In those early days, Dick and other beekeepers in eastern Canada, bought package bees from the southern US every spring and then killed them off in the fall after honey harvest. After the introduction of the honey bee tracheal mite, and then Varroa mite, into the US in the mid-1980s, the Canada/US border was closed to bee imports so they then learned how to winter honey bees. Dick started keeping bees because of his pure fascination with this social insect, plus his small scale honey production and pollination service helped pay his way through university.
Katie Lee
Katie Lee
Midwest Tech-Transfer Team Leader
Bee Informed Partnership
Katie received both a BS in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior and a MS in Entomology from the University of Minnesota. She was introduced to honey bees during her last semester as an undergrad when she took a class on social insects with Dr. Marla Spivak. Marla asked her to work in the U of MN Bee Lab over the summer, and has been enthralled with bees ever since.
Katie is currently part of the Midwest Bee Team for Bee Informed Partnership and is based out of the University of Minnesota. She works with commercial migratory beekeepers in North Dakota and Minnesota to help them monitor pest and disease levels. Her main interests are bee breeding, Varroa, disease ecology, and extension work.
Chris Harp
Chris Harp
Bee Doctor
HoneybeeLives.org
Chris Harp is an organic beekeeper, beekeeping teacher, and “Bee Doctor”. He and fellow beekeeper, Graci St. Clair Rice, co-founded HoneybeeLives.org in 2005. HoneybeeLives’ beekeeping classes have been taught at The Pfeiffer Center for Biodynamic Agriculture, The Sustainable Living Resource Center, The Commons Brooklyn, New England Farms and at the HoneybeeLives Apiary in New Paltz, NY.
Harp’s naturalist and biodynamic methods, and unique hive designs, have developed from his years of working with, and listening to, Honeybees, as well as having studied with Gunther Hauk at the Pfeiffer Center.
Harp has been tending his own hives for twenty-four years, and now tends approximately 200 colonies in locations in New York and Connecticut for both individuals and organizations. Harp is a consultant on hive health for troubled colonies and concerned beekeepers.
Chris Harp has served on the Board of Directors for the Catskill Mountain Beekeepers’ Club, and is currently on the advisory board of the Ulster County Beekeepers Association. He was a consultant for the CNG (Certified-Naturally-Grown) Apiary Standards for their Certification Program and the ensuing publication Handbook for Natural Beekeeping.
Harp’s work as a “Bee Doctor” comes from a deep caring and concern for the fragility of the Honeybee population, and a profound respect for the structure of their collective lives and their impact on the health of Mother Earth. Harp’s goals are focused on the wellbeing of the colonies he nurtures, and through teaching others he raises the awareness of and caring for these amazing creatures.
Tom Seeley
Tom Seeley is a Professor and Chairman in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. His current work focuses on swarm intelligence; see here for more information. His latest book is Honeybee Democracy .
Professor Seeley’s talk, “Honey bee in the wild,” will describe how honey bees live in the wild, compare this to how they live as colonies managed by beekeepers, and will explore the consequences for the bees of these different ways of life.
Elizabeth Capaldi Evans
Elizabeth Capaldi Evans is an Associate Professor of Biology and Animal Behavior at Bucknell University whose research interests include studies of the insect brain, of honeybee biology including harmonic radar, and native bee distributions in PA. Click here for more information. Her latest book is Why Do Bees Buzz? Fascinating Answers to Questions About Bees. More information about the book is available at this link.
Dr. Evans’ talk, “Learning about Bee Learning,” will review bees as model animals for understanding general principles of learning and why this information is essential for beekeepers, as well as recent research about how environmental factors (global change, pesticides, and diseases) influence bee behavior and the future of beekeeping