Big Island Beekeepers Association (BIBA) March Monthly Meeting
About Us
The Big Island Beekeepers Association’s (BIBA) mission is to assist fellow beekeepers; to educate beekeepers and the public in matters related to honey bees and beekeeping; to cooperate in marketing honey bee products; to provide community service related to bee issues; to promote beekeeping by creating a positive image of honey bees, beekeeping and bee products.
Visit us at https://www.bigislandbeekeepers.com/
Follow us on Facebook @BigIslandBeekeepers
Featured Topic
This month we will be hosting Amber Leach and Phil Craft of Veto-pharma. They’ll cover the basics of Varroa Mites, their biology, life cycle, signs of a sick colony, times to treat, the latest on Apivar and their other products, and much more! Check out their website: https://www.veto-pharma.com/ Please come with questions!
Amber’s Bio: Amber lives (and will be Zooming in from) Colorado. She attended the University of Rio Grande, where she received her bachelor’s degree in Social Science and later in the year 2001, went to Franklin University, where she was awarded her master’s degree in Marketing & Communication. Moving forward, she would love to complete Cornell University’s master beekeeping class, all in due time. She has been actively involved in the beekeeping industry for the past 6 years. During this time, she has learned, unlearned, relearned, and has gotten to understand bees and beekeeping in general.
Her role at Véto-pharma has to do with her having open-line communication with the company’s distributors in USA and Canada. She is charged with the task of working closely with customers, gleaning information from the field, understanding their pain points, what they want, what they love, and what they would love to see change. In simpler terms, she is the liaison between Véto-pharma and its distributors and customers in North America.
When she was asked what her general impression of the beekeeping industry is, she started by sharing a famous saying in America, “if you ask 5 beekeepers for their opinion, you get 6 or 7 opinions”. She is of the opinion everybody has diverse ways of doing things, which they all believe to be right. But not all are research-based. Some are just opinions, some are just anecdotal experiences, tactics, or approaches.
According to Amber, the industry has seen an uptick in hobbyists and sideliners because most people were looking for brain breaks and searching for ways to mitigate mental health issues during Covid. The number of inexperienced beekeepers has increased. It put on the shoulders of all stakeholders to come together, form an alliance to help these beginners’ beekeepers in the industry grow as well. The engagement of women, young people, and people of color in the industry has also seen an upward trend. The stereotype that the industry is made of older white males is not necessarily the case. Beekeepers are now made of a more robust diverse group, which is an important step in the right direction of the industry, somehow assuring us of a brighter future. Read more about Amber at: https://www.blog-veto-pharma.com/us/get-to-know-amber-leach-the-sales-manager-for-north-america/
This month we will be conducting a ZOOM ONLY meeting due to the ongoing poor weather in the East Hawaii area. The Meeting link will go live at 6PM Hawaii time, with the presentation to begin at 6:30PM.
We hope you can join us !
Mahalo and hope to see you then!
- Event Area: East Hawaiʻi, South Hawaiʻi, West Hawaiʻi, North Hawaiʻi