Panel: Questions for Beginners
The beekeeping journey is a never ending process of learning and refining one’s skills, and a person new to the hobby is faced with daunting amounts of information and things to learn. This session will provide a forum to address specific questions posed by beginning beekeepers – answered by experienced members of the Oregon Master Beekeeper Program.
Naomi Price has always embraced the study of insects: 4-H Entomology and educator with science emphasis. Family vacations offered her new environments for the next 6-legged discovery—always safely pinned to the family car’s cloth ceiling. The all important insect net, pins, mounting board and identifications books were never left behind with each childhood move from Palo Alto, California to southern and eastern Oregon.
As 25-years resident of Bend, she and her husband Larry changed addresses for property on the Crooked River Caldera’s rim near Prineville. They built an off-grid home on a mountain site they christened Valhalla, a place of rescue, respite and nod to her Norwegian heritage. Naomi’s life long passion for insects enticed her off Valhalla for Lynn Royce’s “Introduction to Beekeeping” sponsored by central Oregon’s Master Gardener’s Spring Seminar, 2009. It did not take her much time to conclude that if she could not lift the Langstroth hive components, why then should her beekeeper-by-default husband. Honey bees, Larry and Naomi all benefited when she drafted the Valhalla long hive: Price, Naomi. “A Long Hive Designed for Valhalla Apiarium.” The Bee Line (Oregon State Beekeepers Association newsletter), vol. 39, no.10, Nov-Dec 2014, p.1 & 13.
Naomi is a Journey student, mentor, and instructor with the Oregon Master Beekeeper Program. Her apiaries grew from actively rescuing honey bees as swarms, from structural cut-outs, or tree trap-outs. Most of Valhalla Apiarium’s colonies are located on host properties: she owns and manages the hived colonies and shares their products with the host. Valhalla’s isolation revealed itself to be a prime location to rear her colonies queen replacements.
BTW. Naomi’s netted insects of 60 years are held dear and still with her.