TOPIC: Wintering Bees in Really Cold Climates

AGENDA:

GUEST SPEAKER: Etienne Tardif

GUEST SPEAKER TOPIC: Wintering Bees in Really Cold Climates

DAY: Wednesday, December 09, 2020

TIME: 7:00pm - 9:00pm (link will work starting a 15-minutes early so you can set up your computer or phone)

WHERE: Online ONLY. Use the Zoom Link Below

TALK DESCRIPTION:

Etienne keeps bees in the Yukon - he knows winter beekeeping. Hear his A to Z of getting ready to overwinter your bees - hint: it starts in Spring. Etienne will cover basic health, nutrition, environmental factors (weather & forage), hive management basics and hive enclosure "physics".

AUTOBIOGRAPHY:

Etienne Tardif is originally from Central Ontario and received his engineering degree from Carleton University in Ottawa. He got his start in beekeeping with a geologist friend as part of mine reclamation project. The beekeeping was done after work hours. It was learn as they go operation as they were the only beekeepers in the area and Beekeeping for Dummies was their primary source of information. He then took a 10 year break as he moved to Yellowknife to work in the diamond industry and then spent another 3 years in Western Australia. He now lives in the Yukon Territory where he works in the winter as a mining consultant and spends his summers with his wife keeping bees, chickens, tending large gardens, hiking and canoeing. He has now kept bees for the last 7 years north of 60 where he has taken a data driven approach to keeping his bees. The Yukon has no beekeeping regulation or existing support structure for beekeeping. Over the 7 years, he has organized a beekeeping course given by a BC Master Beekeeper, has created a Facebook group dedicated to Northern Beekeeping in Yukon, NWT and Alaska, has attended and presented at an Alaskan Beekeeping. He has written a few articles for the BC BeesCene (Electric Hive Monitoring in the Yukon, Alaska 2019 Beekeeping Symposium, Bee Forage in the Yukon) and recently published an article in the American Bee Journal November 2020 edition. In 2019, he had the opportunity of presenting on his Adaptive Far North Beekeeping approach in the Yukon at Apimondia. Since 2016, he has started running a 2 Day Intro to Beekeeping course using his Northern Beekeeping Guide. Using the money from his course he has purchased a microscope which he uses to identify Nosema infections in his hives, identify pollen sources and analyze his honey for Honeydew trace elements. He loves everything to do with bees/native pollinators and continuously seeks to expand northern best practice beekeeping. He organized a Yukon Beekeeping Club to allow for better networking, raise awareness on beekeeping and or other native pollinators and raise funds for more local bee research. His current focus is on Single Hive management, northern queen rearing/splits and improving hive wintering setups using several hive monitoring sensors. He shares all his findings through the www.northof60beekeeping.com and his Beekeeping North of 60 Facebook group.

Images from Etienne's Talk

WHAT is a WEBINAR and HOW DO I WATCH IT ???

This webinar presents MCBA's meeting (7pm) directly on your computer. To 'attend' requires just three clicks:

1. 10 minutes before the meeting starts, click the ZOOM LINK listed above
2. When your computer asks, click "open zoom.us.app"
3. When your computer asks, click "join with computer audio"

You can join using a computer, phone or tablet, but to use a phone or tablet you must first download and install the free Zoom MEETING app from the app store, or by clicking HERE.

Connecting to ZOOM before the meeting starts will give you time to work through potential glitches.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE and ASK QUESTIONS:

To ASK General Beekeeping questions for the 7:00 PM to 7:30 Q&A you have two options: a) submit them in advance by typing them in the 'Comments" section at the bottom of this page, or TYPE them into the Q&A chat dialog during our Q&A session.

To ASK the Guest Speaker QUESTIONS during the meeting, TYPE them into the chat dialog during her talk. A club volunteer will monitor questions, then read them aloud so everyone can hear. Please don't 'unmute' your microphone during the meeting.