The Carolina Foothills Beekeepers will welcome Carl Chesick as a guest speaker at the monthly meeting next Tuesday, July 12 at 6:30 p.m.
Chesick will speak about natural, treatment-free ways to keep bees and the strategies and issues facing beekeepers who are keeping bees without chemical interventions. The meeting will be held at the Pine Crest Inn Conference Center in Tryon.
“I measure success in beekeeping by hives that survive winter – without treatment with medications, chemicals or organic substances (including acids, menthol, thymol or powdered sugar),” Chesick said.
He believes genetic diversity is an important part of a successful beekeeping philosophy.
“I add a few queens from selected ‘survivor stock’ to my apiary each year, and hope a widely disparate range of genetic material will endow bees a better chance to cope with future global maladies,” he said.
Chesick has experimented with small cell foundation, foundationless frames, double-queen colonies, and various techniques in locally adopted queen rearing.
“I keep bees for what they teach me.” said Chesick. “I attempt to recognize and amend the disadvantages imposed by mankind.”
When Chesick is not focused on raising his bees or his research to help the bees, he has a sign carving business and he and his wife, Joan, operate a certified naturally grown 13-acre organic farm and apiary in West Asheville. He is also one of the founders and current director of the WNC Center for Honeybee Research, located in Western North Carolina.
The Carolina Foothills Beekeepers, the Polk County Chapter of the NC State Beekeepers Association, is a non-profit group open to first-time, novice and experienced beekeepers, as well as non-beekeepers that are interested in honeybees or beekeeping.
The group is focused on fostering information and equipment sharing among area beekeepers, improving beekeeping methods and best practices, educating the general public regarding honeybees, including schools and community groups, encouraging and assisting people who may wish to enter into the field of beekeeping, and most importantly, the healthy proliferation of honeybees in our area.
For more information or to attend the presentation, contact Carl Caudle at 864-457-6288 or via email at polkbeekeepers@gmail.com.
– article submitted by Carl Caudle