Club meetings are normally on the first Thursday of each month at 7:30pm. Meetings are held at the Legion Log Cabin in San Anselmo, CA (20 Veterans Place). However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Until further notice, our meetings will take place via Zoom. Starting at 7:30pm on first Thursdays of the month.
Sept 3: Sam Comfort, topic TBD
Oct 1: Paul da Silva “Beyond Pollinators”. Fall is a great time for planting. Paul will be discussing native plants and their benefits to native insects.
Nov. 5: Michael Smith “Comb” Includes: drone comb and how a colony “knows” its big enough to invest in reproductive comb, and seasonal use of comb.
Dr. Michael Smith received his PhD from Cornell University under the tutelage of Tom Seeley. He did his postdoctoral research in the Department of Collective Behavior at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior / University of Konstanz, Germany. He is soon headed back to the US where he will take a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Auburn University. He’s interested in how honey bee colonies function, how their nests are organized, and how individual bees detect the developmental state of their colony.
Nov. 7: Meghan Milbrath “Why Bees are the Coolest” Amazing anatomical adaptations of Apis mellifera – We’ll see beautiful pictures and hear interesting facts about this fascinating creature. The focus of this talk is how honey bee anatomy drives their experience and perception and can guide our care.
Dr. Meghan Milbrath began working bees over 25 years ago, and now owns and manages The Sand Hill Apiary, a small livestock and queen rearing operation in Munith, Michigan. She studied biology at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, and received degrees in public health from Tulane University and the University of Michigan, where she focused on environmental health sciences and disease transmission risk. Meghan worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Michigan State University, studying nosema disease, and is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at MSU, where she does honey bee and pollinator research and extension and is the coordinator of the Michigan Pollinator Initiative. Meghan is active in multiple beekeeping organizations, writes for multiple beekeeping journals, and speaks about bees all over the country. She currently runs the Northern Bee Network, a directory and resource site dedicated to supporting queen producers, and she is passionate about keeping and promoting healthy bees.
Dec 3: Maryann Frazier “Beekeeping in Kenya”, with auction to benefit a new bee education center in Kenya.
Jan 7: Caroline Yelle of Pope Canyon Queens.
As 2021 is around the corner, the story of a young queen breeder that left her country in Canada to come to California helping to “breed a better tomorrow” for helping the bees and the beekeepers. Only three years into her breeding program, the LNU fire destroyed everything that has been built in 5 years. 2020 hit hard and there are a lot to accomplish on how to bring back the business, how to adapt to disasters, how to cope with the consequences of the past critical fires and what’s expected for the future of the bees in California, around the world, and what to do for mother nature being disturbed by modern agriculture.
Feb 4: Michael Palmer, “The Sustainable Apiary”
Click here for Zoom presentation
Mar 4: Tucka Saville, “Queenrearing”
Click here for Zoom presentation
Apr 1: Frank Mortimer, “Bee People and the Bugs They Love”
Click here for Zoom presentation
May 6: Sevan Suni, Bay Area research on pollen preferences of bees
Click here for Zoom presentation
June 3: Panel presentation & QA on topics related to the challenges we may be facing this summer & how that impacts our bees / beekeeping including: wildfires, water, feeding our bees, queen issues, protecting bees from predators (like yellow jackets, ants, skunks, and other bees), and, varroa mites. Click here for Zoom presentation
July: Marin County Fair
August: Potluck