What Are We Up to and Where Can You See Us?

Some of the books available in the VBA Library!

Photo credit: Angelica Morales UVM ‘26

The bees may be in winter clusters, but our Betterbee staff are traveling far and wide during this time of year giving lectures, delivering orders, and attending bee club meetings. Much like the US Postal Service, neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom, of night will keep us from our appointed rounds! Most of our travel took us straight though some nasty winter weather, but we made it safely to and from our destinations each time.

We welcomed February with a trip north to the Vermont Beekeepers Association winter meeting.  We chatted with Angie from the Vermont Bee Lab at the University of Vermont while she showed us images of a varroa mite viewed under a microscope! We also spent some time with volunteer librarian Chris Oehlhe who is proud to share that the VBA Library is up and running. This is a perk that many other bee clubs offer too:  Library membership is free with your club membership, and book loans can happen either in-person at a meeting or by media mail. While there is a library budget, these collections usually grow mostly through donations. Want to donate a beekeeping-related book to the VBA or your own club’s library? Check out these great titles here.

We then headed southwest to attend the Western PA Beekeeper Seminar where David Peck and a few other experts were officially stumped in the seminar’s opening-night game show Are You Smarter Than a Bee PhD? Dr. Robin Underwood dazzled in her hostess getup, and David and Dr. Jon Zawislak pulled out their best thinking faces. If you have any fun photos of the game show or the seminar in general, we’d love to see them!

Dr. Peck and Dr. Zawislak participating in "Are You Smarter than a Bee PhD"

We also taught a cosmetics and propolis tincture class in Massachusetts, ran a varroa treatment demo at a local SABA meeting, and welcomed potential new club members and bee-curious individuals at the Capital Area Beekeepers open house.  

What’s next, you ask? How could we possibly have energy for more?  Well, we’ve officially embraced the pace, and we’re not slowing down!  In the next couple of weeks, Dr. Peck will present at the Nevada State Beekeepers Conference, and head beekeeper Anne Frey will give a talk to the Will County Beekeepers in Illinois. We’ll also have teams in New Jersey, in Ohio at the Tri County Spring Workshop, and at the Mass Bee spring meeting in Topsfield, MA. If this sounds like a lot, it is!  Betterbee is proud to be a part of beekeeping organizations, and we enjoy working hard to show our support for each and every one! We hope you take advantage of your local bee club’s events. Don’t see Betterbee at your meeting?  Reach out to us! We’re always looking for new clubs to meet and share knowledge with as we prepare for the next beekeeping season.