“EAS' 50th Anniversary in
Bee Culture (October 2005), Vol. 133 (10): 44-46
By
Dr. Malcolm T. Sanford
The Eastern Apicultural
Society’s 50th meeting has concluded. It convened on the campus of
This reporter did not expect
the meeting to be as “emotional” as it turned out. But the remarks by Dr. Mark Winston when he
said goodbye to his career in writing about apiculture brought a tear to many
eyes, including his own. As he writes in
his final column in the August 2005 Bee
Culture, his life has moved away from bees.
Could EAS 50 in fact be his last presentation at a bee meeting? Perhaps, but there was a gleam in his eye when he unwrapped a package
that consisted of a nucleus with several frames of “art” created by bees employing
beeswax to modify and perhaps amplify human contact with these insects. The silent dialogue represented by these
frames seems to fit aptly with Dr. Winston’s new passion for engaging students
about civic issues and art.2 He retires from one phase of a career only
to start another, but will continue to
use his training in bees and beekeeping.
As he concludes in his -30- column,3
it provides “limitless opportunities to think, reflect, and write about
everything from nature to politics to people.”
It is intriguing to read the
history of EAS during the last five decades admirably put together in the
commemorative program by Kim Flottum and Kathy Summers of
the A.I. Root Co., the official historian Dick Chapin and others. This is certain to be a collectable in years
to come. It reports a wealth of information about the history of beekeeping in
the east as it relates to the Society’s activities. EAS was inaugurated in 1955. At the time George Abrams, Apiarist at the
One of the things not readily
apparent to many participants is the link between the commercial side of
beekeeping and the hobbyists and sideliners that continue to flock to the
meeting. It began with the first
convention when the A.I. Root Co. asked managing editor of then Gleanings in Bee Culture to be a
representative to initial meeting in
John Root writes in the commemorative
program that A.I. Root Co. was signed up as THE Charter Commercial member and the organization is “incredibly
proud of that distinction to this
day.” He adds that the company has been
represented at every meeting EAS has held.
Mr. Root was selected as temporary Chairman of the Board when that
position was created in 1977. He helped organize the 1978 meeting at Wooster,
OH attended by over 600 people, and the Root Co. was heavily involved in the Year of the Hive in 1995 (600 in attendance) at the
same venue, as well as this year’s meeting in Kent.
Each year the number of
commercial booths reveals that the hobbyist and sideline markets are alive and
well. As the
commercial aspects of the beekeeping industry change, so too will these be
reflected in the relationship between EAS and its potential commercial
sponsors.
The 1950s and 60s were
formative for the Society when it met at The Pennsylvania State University,
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Cornell and Rutgers Universities
among others. In 1961, EAS joined Apimondia,
paying the $46.50 dues. It incorporated
in 1962. The first “foray into
In 1979 Roberta Glatz
became “the first female to speak at an EAS meeting,” and Mark Winston then at
the
The grandest meeting to date
would be held in 1984 with a record 738 attending, in the same place where the
Association was first mentioned as a possibility in1954 at a tri-state meeting
in
“The
fifteen years since 1990 have been generally steady, stable and calm,”
according to the history in the commemorative program. Not so the
forces surrounding beekeeping, however, including challenges by tracheal and Varroa mites, followed by the Africanized honey bee and small hive
beetle. On top of that there have been
“wildly fluctuating honey prices, increasing costs of equipment, slow and
persistent loss of forage areas and increasingly difficulty with urban
locations.” 1991 saw several firsts,
including a hotel venue in
Roger Morse, one of the rocks
of EAS, died in 1999 and that year the award for teaching, extension and
regulatory was given for the first time in his name to Jim Tew. This reporter was proud to win it in 2003 in
The EAS commitment to beekeeper education is perhaps best
expressed in this year’s program, which ran the gamut from presentations by one
of the nation’s largest beekeepers, Richard Adee, who
discussed moving to the
Dr. Collins said studies in sperm preservation were
important for a number of reasons. These
include conserving genetic diversity (being lost as parasitic mites take a
great toll on honey bees around the world), saving selected commercial stock,
rescuing valuable bee types from disappearing and enhancing the export/import
process. A great conundrum is how the
queen manages to store her sperm, when she has no integral refrigeration
mechanism. Sperm preservation in honey
bees appears to be more problematic than other animals (mammals), although
scientists are trying through use of what are called cryoprotectants. These are added to water, which when subsequently
frozen, does not produce ice crystals that can damage the sperm. The problem is that in spite of this process,
storing bee sperm leads to a high proportion of drones in inseminated queens as
their viability is reduce to less than 20 percent. Most intriguing is the concept that maybe the
queen doesn’t act alone in sperm preservation.
Could the drone also contribute?
Dr. Collins promises more on this subject at a later date.
Exciting news at EAS was the
announcement that finally a formulation of formic acid is going to receive a label from the
regulatory authorities. Thus, a product
called Mite-Away II® is being given registration in the
Both organic acids and to
some extent other organic materials (products based on thymol
or oils) reveal that a shift must take place in beekeepers’ thinking. Again, EAS is the perfect venue to bring these
materials to the beekeeping industry’s attention because of its strong
educational emphasis. They have been
described as “dumb products for intelligent beekeepers,” as opposed to those
currently marketed for which the reverse is the case. The same will be true for the next generation
antibiotic to be used for foulbroods resistant to the current antibiotic Terramycin® (oxytetracycline). Tylosin lactate,
first discovered as a treatment against foulbroods by USDA ARS in the 1970s,6 looks to be the next material to be labeled. However, it will require a veterinarian’s prescription and cannot be use prophylactically as is currently done with Terramycin®, another shift in the beekeeper mind set.
The emphasis on queens at
this year’s EAS is also without precedent.
There were presentations on queen behavior, anatomy, breeding (sperm
preservation as described
elsewhere) and production.
Sue Cobey gave perhaps the most impassioned
speech. She and her New World Carniolan program7 have reached somewhat of a
crossroads with changes at The Ohio State University’s Walter Rothenbuhler Bee Laboratory. It’s time she said for beekeepers to get on
the queen breeding bandwagon and support the handful of those out there like
herself who have dedicated a huge amount of work and effort to increasing queen
quality. It seems likely that it will be
the hobby and sideliner beekeepers that make up the majority of EAS
participants who must lead the charge toward a more healthful beekeeping by
supporting incipient breeding programs.
This is already being done in
The 50th
Anniversary Celebration of the Eastern Apicultural Society of North America,
which began the general convention in