2014 BCHPA Convention report: Let me start off with saying that if you have not joined BCHPA yet and you keep bees you really should join. The benefits of membership are worth every penny. A highlight for me was getting 2nd place in the honey competition will most certainly enter my honey again as it was a lot of fun. Had a chance to sit down and talk with Dr. Maria Spivak, I use her video from Teds talk in my beekeeping courses. I also had the pleasure of introducing her at the convention. She is now building a new research lab at the University of Minnesota. Had a short meeting with Lana Popham, M.L.A., critic for Agriculture and lands. She is wanting to do a agricultural tour of the province and would like to meet with the beekeepers in this area. It would be really cool if someone would be willing to organize a bee club up here. It would be great if this could be done in conjunction with the beekeepers in Hazelton and Smithers. I do not have the time to organize this but I would be willing to be a club mentor. I had a very productive meeting with Dr. Leonard Foster from Foster Research Lab at UBC. Up until now in order to asses a queen for hygienic behaviour we need to produce daughter queens and then test the hives of the daughter queens. What he is working on is using molecular medicine and testing for protein markers. We have the genome for honey bees and know what genes control hygienic behaviour. What he is working on is perfecting the test for the proteins from these genes. He thinks that he will have it ready for breeders to use by spring time. When he perfects this testing he can reduce a process which takes us breeders a year to do to several days. Instead of breeding queens and then waiting to see if they turn out to be hygienic you can just take some of her works and test for eight proteins. This is very exciting. Had some discussion around the lack of bee inspectors. If we wish to have a response to the lack of bee inspectors it is time for us to not only write to the agricultural minister but also to the agricultural critic. Mark your calenders for next year, the weekend after thanksgiving day weekend is the convention next year and it is in Comox.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 03:01:48 +0000