October 27th 2025
Rich called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM
A former club member has some used and some new equipment for sale.
Dealing with crystalized honey—In a bag with a heating pad
Zentari is one tsp per quart of water for wax moth control
Norroa is a product that may be available soon in Oregon. It is an RNAI product.
It is expensive. It cannot be used with supers on a colony with supers present.
Anna brought Bob up to present in member spotlight.
Bob started beekeeping in 2018. Has bees at home. Has horizontal and Langstroth hives.
Bob enjoys inspecting and finding eggs. He did not have a mentor to start, but Todd was kind enough one year to come out as oxalic Santa. Bob has tried his hand at mentoring also. Bob says the most difficult thing about beekeeping is lifting deeps. Bob has made friends found mentors and learned something at every meeting. He encouraged new beekeepers to ask questions and meet friends. HIs favorite beekeeping books are Beekeeping for Dummies and Beginning Beekeeping. He recommends having an experienced beekeeper come out and watch you work. He joined the OSU Master beekeeping program and started from scratch at the apprentice level.
Bob lost colonies out at a farm and had more success after moving them home where there is not as long of a dearth.
Bob recommends using a white board for notetaking, then transferring to a journal or log sheet. He highly recommends a calendar. He couldn’t stress enough how helpful Todd has been to him.
Anna took the podium to give a recap of the OSBA Fall conference.
Dewey gave a talk about intermediate beekeeping and Elaine gave a small contribution.
There was a honey judge.
Saturday morning, Andony Melathopolus gave a talk and referenced a new publication he and Ramesh Sagili put together refuting the article about honeybees being bad for other pollinators from the Xerxes society.
Then there was a queen rearing panel, we may bring one of the panelists here to speak.
Cameron Jack spoke about varroa treatments. He said if you don’t do anything about varroa your bees will die.
Don’t let levels spike.
There was a panel about new varroa treatments.
Zac Lamas is an independent researcher in Baltimore. He has to get his own funding and hopes beekeepers will help support his lab.
He talked about the high colony losses and the role of viruses vectored by varroa and Amitraz resistance.
Carolyn Breece spoke on advanced hive inspections. EfB stays present in the brood frames for up to a year.
Cameron Jack spoke about new chemicals for small hive beetle and varroa control
Next year the conference will be in Seaside.
National honey judge—judged to a standard, so not ribbons for every place.
Our club won spirit award because more members from our club entered the contests than from any other club attending. There were lots of winners from our club.
The people’s choice award for photos went to Tori and the black jar honey label went to Denny. Elaine got the first place award in the photo contest.
Rich and Laura went over finances and mentioned that all club members are paying 5 dollars now towards OSBA. Then all club members will be members of OSBA.
Rich announced that we need to decide if we donate to OSU bee lab through the OSBA. A motion was made that we donate 750 dollars to the OSU Bee lab, it was seconded and a club member offered to donate an extra hundred dollars. You can also go to OSBA website and donate individually. The motion was unanimously accepted.
Breaktime.
8:04
Onyx Baird took the podium. She is making a documentary about female beekeepers.
They are about 70 Percent done with the filming. She has merch for sale to support the film.
She is a regenerative beekeeper of nine years. She worked on wildlife diseases as a scientist. She wanted to do an art project to spread the word about the problems bees face.
She referenced Thomas Seeley’s work on bees in the Arnodt forest. Bees in the forest had made 600 changes in their DNA in the five years between when he studied them and the advent of the varroa mite.
Onyx works with wild and feral swarms only and does not treat her bees. She says she has never lost a hive to mites, but has lost them to queen issues and pesticides.
She says wild bees have genetic bank crucial for saving the bees.
She cites deforestation as a problem.
Her film is called Amrita, the Sanskrit word for honey, which is considered a holy food.
She says bees used to be teachers and guides.
Only 32 percent of beekeepers are women.
She has a friend in Hawaii who has been working with feral bees. There used to be upwards of one million colonies feral in Hawaii, but they fell due to varroa mite and small hive beetle.
She says Hawaii is a test ground for Monsanto.
She cites overbreeding of certain genetic strains as a problem, as well as illegal pesticide spraying.
She says queens are the most susceptible to pesticides.
She has started rotating comb more frequently since wax absorbs contaminants.
In Portugal they are trying to rewild trees and are trying to incorporate cork into hive bodies.
She has worked in Mexico with stingless bees that are smaller and put honey in little wax pots. It is thin, liquid honey harvested with a syringe.
She showed a video with excerpts from her film. It highlights several groups of women beekeepers in Hawaii and South America.
Onyx said she would be available for conversation and honey sampling.