The North Carolina State Beekeepers Association

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Meetings

UNCW Production “Keepers of the Bees” to be Screened During 2020 Spring Meeting

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You are invited to a special screening of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington production, “Keepers of the Bees”, at the 2020 Spring Conference in New Bern, March 5-7, 2020. 

In 2017, a group of UNCW students founded the UNCW Beekeeping Club. They’d been inspired by the passion of Dr. Anthony Snider, an associate professor in Environmental Studies. But they would ultimately find themselves on a journey to expand their environmental awareness, learn the biological and public intricacies of beekeeping, and follow in the footsteps of generations of beekeepers before them.

The emerging beekeepers soon discovered they would be joining a much larger community: Farmers, scientists, legislators and hobbyists in North Carolina who work together to ensure the honeybee population thrives. This is an ecosystem that affects the agriculture of our state and, ultimately, the food on our tables. The honey bee is one of the most important contributors to our environment, and their survival depends on beekeepers. What started as an interest in creating a club has evolved into a passion for cultivating and protecting a species — and a sense of duty to honor the sacred legacy of beekeeping.

Keepers of the Bees: Official Trailer 2019 from UNCW Ofc of Univ Relations on Vimeo.

Tom Seeley, Phil Craft, David Tarpy Presenting at 2018 Summer Meeting

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Excited about the Summer Meeting yet? NCSBA has an intriguing lineup of speakers. Read a bit more about some of amazing apiarists presenting in July.

 

Phil Craft

 

 

Phil Craft served as the Kentucky State Apiarist from 1999 through 2011. Phil continues to communicate with beekeepers through his “Ask Phil” question/answer column which appears in Bee Culture magazine, and through his webpage, Philcrafthivecraft.com. He is also the U.S. technical adviser for Veto-pharma, the maker of Apivar, Varroa Easy Check, and other products. A native of the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, he now lives out in the sticks in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky near Lexington with his family, a very old dog, and some bee hives. 

 

 

Dr. Thomas D. Seeley is the Horace White Professor in Biology at Cornell University. He is based in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, where he teaches courses on animal behavior and does research on the behavior and social life of honey bees.  His scientific work has primarily focused on understanding the phenomenon of swarm intelligence (SI):  the solving of cognitive problems by a group of individuals who pool their knowledge and process it through social interactions.  His work is summarized in three books: Honeybee Ecology (1985), The Wisdom of the Hive (1995), and Honeybee Democracy (2010). 

 

 

David Tarpy

 

David Tarpy is a Professor of Entomology and the Extension Apiculturist at North Carolina State University since 2003. His research interests focus on the biology and behavior of honey bee queens in order to better improve the overall health of queens and their colonies. His work has provided some of the best empirical evidence that multiple mating by queens confers multiple and significant benefits to colonies through increased genetic diversity of their nestmates. More recently, his lab group has focused on the reproductive potential of commercially produced queens, testing their genetic diversity and mating success in an effort to improve queen quality.