Grant Gillard – Our 2012 Beekeeper of the Year!
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The Missouri State Beekeepers Association is proud to announce the award for this year’s Beekeeper of the Year to Grant Gillard. Grant is a frequent beekeeping conference speaker, and has published numerous articles in both Bee Culture and American Bee Journal, in addition to a number of books on beekeeping. From 2010 through 2012, Grant served as President of the Missouri State Beekeepers Association.
Grant describes himself as a “Serious Sideliner”, operating multiple apiaries totaling around 200 hives. He resides in Jackson, Missouri, along with his wife Nancy and three grown children, Austin, Claire and Barbara.
Pictured above is the presentation of the award by current MSBA President, John Timmons, during the Dadant & Sons 150th Anniversary Celebration in Hamilton, Illinois. (Photo courtesy of John Blazek)
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Governor Nixon Proclaims August 12th – 18th Missouri “Honey Bee Week”!
Governor Jay Nixon is pictured above during ceremonies in front of the Missouri State Beekeepers Association booth at the Missouri State Fair. Governor Nixon proclaimed August 12th through the 18th, “Missouri State Honey Bee Awareness and Appreciation Week” in recognition of the importance of honey bees and beekeepers to Missouri agriculture and our economy.
Click here to view additional photos of the event.
Pictured with Governor Nixon are Dr. Jon Hagler, Director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture; John Timmons, Vice-President of the Missouri State Beekeepers Association; and Missouri’s First Lady, Georganne Nixon.
Click on proclamation image to right to enlarge >>>
Joining in the ceremonies, but not pictured, was Ed Spevak, Curator of Invertebrates for the St. Louis Zoo and Art and Vera Guilder, members of MSBA and operators of Walk-About Acres in Columbia, Missouri.
Click here to read more from the Missouri Department of Agriculture website >>>
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The “Yum” of an Old Sycamore Tree
Here’s a nice picture and story sent in by MSBA President, Grant Gillard. It concerns a recent storm, an old sycamore ”bee tree”, and Grant’s work to make the best of it. Here’s Grant’s story …
A storm blew down a HUGE sycamore tree in an apartment complex in Jackson. The landlord, Mr. Penrod, who owned the apartment complex gave me the whole story about when he was a kid, his dad went into the woods to collect honey in the winter and they harvested wash tubs of comb honey and they ate on it all winter long and it was the best thing he ever tasted and it’s been years since he had comb honey from a wild hive and he’d sure like the honey and, after all, the bees were in his tree … blah, blah, blah.
So our arrangement was his guys would cut the tree to find the comb, I’d vacuum out the bees, he’d keep the honey. Fine with me. The other fellow cut slices of the tree until we hit the honey stores, then I vacuumed out the bees. Trying to lure them into a swarm trap was unsuccessful. So I worked to pull out the comb, vacuum the bees off the comb.
I dumped the vacuumed bees into a colony and gave them a new queen, and fed them.
The honey was dark, and the comb was full of dirt and saw dust. Yum!
