President
Joe Maresh was born and grew up in North Portland, Oregon. As a child, he did a lot of agricultural work and noticed that all of the farms that he worked on had bees. As a young adult, he held a lot of odd jobs, including cook and wildland fire fighter. At the ripe old age of 20, he went to work on tug boats and retired after 40 years. Joe started keeping bees in 1999, when he moved out of Portland to east of Canby. Starting with two hives, he harvested 140 pounds of honey the first year and was hooked. The second year, he joined the Portland Metro Beekeepers Association and expanded to five hives. In his third season, he split those five to ten, and that winter lost all but one. For several years, he kept between 10 and 20 hives so that he could sell honey and do small pollination jobs. When he retired in December 2013, he expanded to between 30 and 40 hives. Joe served as president of PMBA for three years, starting in 2014. He is “a hands-on type of guy” who enjoys working with others toward a common goal. As PMBA president, he started several group-buying ventures for nucs, sugar, and queens. He also pools his bees with others for almond pollination in California. Joe finds bees and the people who keep them fascinating and looks forward to serving the membership of OSBA.