This summer we had a very successful seminar on Extracting Honey. Pat and Jim Haskell presented a wonderful program on extracting honey. Pat is an EAS Master Beekeeper and is responsible for pulling together the Northern Virginia Teaching Consortium. Together with Jim, they run a whole bunch of hives in Northern Virginia and in Page County, VA. Pat has been instrumental in helping to organize the Prince William Beekeepers Association and remains a good friend and supporter of our club.

We also had another successful seminar in June on  Making Overwintered Nucs with Karla Eisen, John Strecker and friends.  We were delighted to have guests from Howard County Beekeepers, a few folks from West Virginia, and Nevin Rank of Honey Rustlin Farms attend.  Note that Nevin also makes some of the custom woodenware discussed.  Find him here: http://www.honeyrustler.com/

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We hope to continue to offer intermediate and advanced seminars in the alternative months to our regular club meetings.  In order to do this, we will need more of YOU the membership to help run our regular beekeeping club meetings, come up with ideas for programs, etc. We need to to do two things:

1) keep reaching out to and teaching new beekeepers via our introduction class and  our regular club meetings, and

2) continue to increase the education of existing beekeepers, in part through the advanced beekeeping seminars.

We need to continue to do both of these things and we hope that more people will respond with ideas for programs AND step up to help put them together.  All ideas welcome.  Please contact one of the PWRBA club officers to discuss any ideas you have.

Anyone interested who wants to host a field day in their apiary please feel free to do so.

If you need help or support, contact one of PWRBA officers and we can help you.

Worm Wrangling: Or, Why I Love Keeping Worms More Than Keeping Bees.

Contact Keith Tignor at 804-786-3515 for details or see http://www.virginiabeekeepers.org/

Date: 2009-11-07

Toni Burnham with Swarm from http://citybees.blogspot.com/2009/04/visit-with-first-bees.html

We will hear from 3 experienced Urban Beekeepers. Learn from these people and issues they confront and mistakes they have make.

Toni Burnham has been an urban beekeeper for 5 years, starting with 2 still-thriving hives on her Capitol Hill rooftop. She now manages 10 hives in the city and the suburbs, mentors about a dozen other urban beekeepers, participates in teaching at several local short courses, and is Vice President of the Maryland State Beekeepers Association. One of her great privileges in 2009 was an invitation to inspect the beehive managed by Charlie Brandts at the White House. She has blogged her beekeeping experiences at http://citybees.blogspot.com

Cameo Wood currently owns a beekeeping supply & honey shop in the Mission district of San Francisco, California called Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper. I enjoy this a great deal, as I’m helping to create food, pollinate flowers and fruit trees in my city, and I am contributing to making the world a little better. She keeps a few hives in the Mission and Castro districts of San Francisco, and is working on putting up new hives all the time! She has only been working with bees for the last year, but this has been her life and full time job since she started building her store in October of 2008.

Cindy Bee (yes, it’s really her last name) is a beekeeper near Atlanta, Georgia. She is a past President and currently on the Board of Directors for the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers’ Association. They meet in the heart of downtown Atlanta where there are a good number of beekeepers who have their hives in small backyards there. As a club, they’ve had beehives at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Zoo Atlanta, and other inner city locations. Cindy has a fulltime business removing bees from within structures for the past 14 years, and most of her removals are in the Atlanta area neighborhoods.

Register Online: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/153470658

Manassas Church of the Brethren (MCOB) located at 10047 Nokesville Road (Route 28) in Manassas

Thanks to the efforts of Gary Harris, our club meeting location has changed beginning with our Jan., 2010 meeting. Starting Tues., Jan 12th we will conduct PWRBA meetings at the Manassas Church of the Brethren (MCOB) located at 10047 Nokesville Road (Route 28) in Manassas.

There is plenty of parking and you can avoid stairs entirely if you enter from the bottom entrance of the church.

We will meet in the fellowship hall downstairs which has 60 person capacity and convenient amenities adjacent to the room.

The new facility is very environmentally conscientious. We will make all efforts possible to use washable plates, cups, etc. during our meetings. Or you may consider bringing your own personal mug to meetings for drinks.