I BEE Speaking....

It's not unusual for me to give about one bee talk somewhere or another every month.

• In January, I spoke to the NE GA Mountain Beekeepers and gave another talk to a ladies' lunch group in Marietta.
• In February, I gave a talk on Wax: Fun and Facts at the GBA Spring Meeting and I spoke to the Ogeechee Beekeepers in Statesboro, Ga.  
• In March, I said no to all invitations because my daughter was having a baby in the middle of the month.

This month coming up (April), I made commitments without really studying my calendar and I have one week which is crammed with three bee talks.

• On April 9, I am speaking to the Pickens County South Carolina Bee Club about "Letting your Bees Go Naked," a talk about using foundationless frames.

• On April 13, I am speaking to the Coweta County beekeepers on "Simple Beekeeping: Low Tech Ways to make your Beekeeping Life Easier"

• On April 16, I am speaking in Charlotte, NC at the Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association on "Simple Ways to use Ordinary Household Objects to Make your Beekeeping Easier."

If you are in the area of any of these, please come and join us!

What I didn't add to this crazy April schedule is that I am driving from Pickens to Charleston, SC for a wedding on Friday and Saturday.  I'll drive back to Atlanta on Sunday before going to Newnan on Monday to speak to Coweta.  Absolute bee-craziness.

I will probably give other talks as the year goes on, but after that for the moment I am only scheduled to speak to Tara Beekeepers in September and to a garden club in November.

I love to talk to beekeepers and garden clubs, but doing three talks in seven days with an out of town wedding in between, was poor planning on my part.

Intown Jewish Preschool

For several years now, I have gone at the Jewish holidays to talk to the children at the Intown Jewish Preschool about bees and honey.  This year I took the observation hive that belongs to my local bee club.  It lives at my friend, Gina's, house, so I picked it up the night before on Wednesday.  I gave the talks (I did it three times) and then put the hive in the car and drove to Blue Heron Nature Preserve where Gina was also giving a talk and needed the observation hive.

Here I am opening the observation hive.

In this photo I've drafted kids to be the guard bees, the drones, etc.

This little guy is the housekeeping bee!

This was just one class, but I did the talk three times for three different age groups.

They always ask good questions when I go to this school.  And of course, they each have a sting story of when they were stung by a "bee."  I usually use that opportunity to talk about the difference in a bee and a yellow-jacket.

Speaking to SOWEGA bee club

On Thursday, last week, I went to Albany, Georgia to speak to the SOWEGA bee club there.  They don't regularly have nonmember speakers, so I felt quite complimented that I was invited.  It's a long way from Atlanta - over three hours - so I arranged to spend the night with Bear and Marybeth Kelley who live about 45 minutes north of Albany.  Bear is the president of the Georgia Beekeepers Association and both of them are generous and very nice people.

I talked to the bee club about using foundationless frames.  I encouraged them to try a few or a box of foundationless or at least some small experiment with foundationless frames to see how their bees did. 

Hopefully some of them will give it a try.

Thanks to Marybeth Kelley for taking these photos.

What I Did for Love.....

Just got back from the GBA meeting at Lake Blackshear.  Gina and I had a great time.  Because our newsletter is a relatively new feature of GBA, we were cheered on quite a bit by the membership.  We are occupying as a team, one voting position on the board of directors, so every time we voted, we grabbed each other's hand and raised two arms as one.  The attendees seemed to find that amusing and we got attention for the newsletter and what we are working on.

We came back with a number of promises from people to write articles for us.

I was the last speaker of the meeting, talking about why one might want to get certified and work one's way through the ranks of certified, journey(wo)man and Master Beekeeper.  I called the talk, "What I Did for Love" - relevant, given that Valentine's Day is this coming week.

Gina kindly took a photo of me as the talk was about to begin:

GBA Spring Meeting this Weekend

The "spring" (it's February and relatively cold, for goodness sake) meeting of the Georgia Beekeepers Association is this weekend.  Gina and I are going together and rooming together.  There's a board meeting on Friday night.  Gina and I are on the board as co-editors of the newsletter, Spilling the Honey.  After that there is a reception for the members and we'll go to that as well.

Then on Saturday the day is filled with speakers and gathering.  I am actually speaking.  I was asked to talk about why get yourself certified at bee school such as Young Harris.  I never asked myself why I went through the certification to reach Master Beekeeper.  It's been a challenge to think it through and to develop a talk about why people should consider certification.

I decided to call the talk:  What I Did for Love: Why Go for Certification at Bee School.  I had completed the whole PowerPoint before I realized that Valentine's Day is next week!   So I changed the color scheme to red and white!

If you are in the vicinity, come.  The meeting is at Lake Blackshear Resort near Cordele, Georgia.  You can read all about it on the newsletter site or on the GBA website.  It's only $35 to go and that includes lunch.

Cordele is a little over two hours south of Atlanta near Plains, GA, home of Jimmy Carter.  Maybe we'll go eat lunch with him on Friday!

Speaking at Intown Jewish Preschool

Last Monday I gave three short workshops to the Intown Jewish Preschool - to the 2s, 3s, and 4-5s. The children were adorable. Each class tried on my grandson's bee veil, wore wings I borrowed from my friend Mickey, and felt honeycomb. We all did the round dance and the circle dance.

I had a great time and I think they did as well.









The fours/fives had been studying bees. They even knew the parts of the bee's body (the head, the thorax, the abdomen). I was impressed. And they asked really good questions.



This little girl had gotten to be the queen bee last year and couldn't wait for her turn to be the queen this year!



All in all, we had fun and I think the children learned a lot.