North Carolina State Beekeepers Association

2006 Summer Conference

The North Carolina Beekeepers Association had their summer conference in High Point NC with over 300 beekeepers on hand for the many lectures and workshops. The outgoing President, Mr. J.D. Foust started things off talking about how he has enjoyed being the President and will continue as a beekeeper - just not an officer. The Guilford County Beekeepers was the home club putting on the conference and they did an outstanding job. The state inspectors gave a report of what is happening in their areas and the workshops began. There were many workshops from Wax molding to Bee Diseases, pollinaton, Photography, Pesticides and many other subjects. Fred Rossman had a workshop on Queen Rearing and told of how he goes about his queen rearing business in southern Georgia. Lawrence Cutts, a retired Florida State Inspector gave a talk on African Honeybees in Florida. The Mayor of High Point, Becky Smothers,  was on hand and welcomed everyone to High Point and told us all to "leave the Hotel and go out and spend some money and see High Point". John Skinner from the University of Tennessee talked about swarming. Carl Webb talked about Asian Tropilaelaps Mite while Virginia Webb had the class on Wax Molding. Many comments were made that this was an excellent workshop. Ed Levi, the Arkansas State Apiarist talked on IPM of Beekeeping and Dr. John Ambrose talked on Honey and food labels  and talked about how NC State and UNC work together and gave many puns about UNC because a lot of the people there were UNC grads. Nick Aliano, form the University of Nebraska, gave a great presentation on Techniques for using Oxalic Acid. He also put on a swarm demo in the parking lot out behind the Hotel.  Some of the pictures to the left are of his swarm Demo. Jennifer Keller wrapped things up telling of the many things that NC State University has been doing over the last couple years. JD then closed the conference. This was my first summer conference but not my last. I only wish I had gotten a lot more pictures. This was a great conference and you should plan to attend next years Spring and Summer events.

North Carolina Club of the Year

The North Carolina Beekeeper Club of the Year was won by Buncombe County but the Gaston Beekeepers Association was a close second. Congrats to all the Gaston County Beekeepers.

As you can see Mr Chip Stowe and Mr Art Duckworth walked away with a number of ribbons with their honey. Congrats guys !