January 2022

It’s hard to believe another year has passed! Hopefully your bees are healthy and tucked up nicely for the winter. PUB is seeing significant changes to its Board of Directors this year. A number of positions were open to include President and Vice President and some folks shifted to different positions. PUB is very grateful for the work Cheryl Wright put into PUB these past two years as President. She shepherded us through the transition to online and continued to keep our disparate community connected. Mandy Shaw is also moving on – as past President and current Treasurer she has been a strong driver of PUB – bringing wonderful speakers, working with Cheryl to set up our new apiary at Green Anchors and so many other things behind the scenes. Ian Horvath, a Portland-based beekeeper has agreed to step into the position of President and Jana Patterson will bring Board experience to the position of VP. We look forward to a new year of bee education and community engagement with them at the helm!

Unfortunately, we decided not to have our in-person honey tasting this year. It just felts like the virus hadn’t quite settled down enough to have it and of course we’re deep in Omicron now. Hopefully next year things will move towards a new normal. Our November speaker was Bill Hesbach, a master beekeeper from Cheshire, Connecticut who spoke with us about winter insulation. He theorizes insulated hives better mimic the natural conditions found in tree hives and recommends R7-R10 insulation on the top and sides without ventilation. While our conditions here in the PNW are certainly different than in Connecticut, the theories and science behind it are very compelling. We’ll see you back on-screen in January!