Have you wondered about how honey bees are faring in Chaffee County? Local beekeeper Jamie Johnston’s family has been raising bees for three generations, and Jamie will discuss her family’s honey bees, and Mike Andree will talk about research on colony collapse disorder.
Jamie Johnston created the Beeyond the Hive store in 2005 with a vision of sharing her passion for bees by creating young, fun, and trendy bee and honey products. She realized that most beekeepers were middle-aged men and that there wasn’t a huge interest from the younger generation. She wanted to change that. Jamie has worked along side her father Lyle since she was a little girl, and when she was old enough she bought 300 hives of her own. The business has grown from there!
Mike Andree received his introduction to beekeeping at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture as a field technician assisting in collection and processing various types of honey bee samples. From there he went on to work for Penn State University, conducting honey bee disease and past surveys. He has done extensive research on bee colony disorder and collapse and is one of the very few people in the world who has performed thousands of bee dissections. In 2001, Mike moved to Northern California to participate in a project known as the Bee Informed Partnership. The project involved 16 queen breeders and was developed in part to help bridge the gap between scientists and beekeepers. Currently, Mike is a beekeeper in training under the tutelage of Lyle Johnston.

Cost:$3 members, $5 non members

Pre-registration is encouraged and appreciated in order to know how many participants to expect. However, participants may pay at the door.

Online registration: You do not need a pay pal account, only a credit card. We do charge .50 to cover pay pal fees.