April 2025 Meeting
Our guest speaker for our April meeting was Anthony Snider and his wife, Shanhong. Dr Snider is a retired UNCW professor who taught Beekeeping to the students and worked to create the UNCW Beekeepers Club. The club with the help of Dr Snider worked to have bee hives on campus.
The movie Keeper of the Bees documents the events surround that effort and the importance of honeybees to our ecosystem!
The topic of the night was “Apiculture Travel”. Via video presentation of personal photos, they took us on an international journey. From the stingless bees of Costa Rica who do bite, pull arm hairs and fly up noses (!) to not so nice bees of Cambodia. These ladies produce lots of honey, are migratory by nature and move in a wave like pattern before attacking! The Italian bees of Cuba are tightly controlled by the government, where pesticide use is banned and yet there is no issue with varroa in these hives.
The main area of discussion was of China, where Shanhong grew up. This group of beekeepers is also supported by the government as select individuals are given the privilege to work with honeybees. They learn the craft by observation and experimentation, the written word is not used to pass on knowledge. Italian and Chinese bees live in harmony, side by side, in their one story deep hives. Interestingly, the Italian variety has a varroa problem while the Chinese bees, Apis cerana, are varroa free. They still use Amitraz and Apistan. One beekeeper they observed employed a double graft queen cell technique. He replaces his queens twice per season, April and August. When the flow is on, he requeens without use of a cage. He pulls the larvae from the cup after 24 hours, replaces it with a new one, thereby doubling the amount of the royal jelly in that queen cup giving the queen a serious boost! He runs ½ sheets of foundation as it, like all hive supplies, are expensive. He harvests honey very frequently (some do it daily) a frame at a time from that single deep. The resulting honey is often “wet”. Most honey sold is adulterated, diluted with rice, beet or corn syrup before it is sold. So much more info given than I can relate here!
Thank you so much for your informative and fascinating talk, Dr. Snider! Currently, Anthony and Shanhong reside in Southern Pines. We appreciate them coming to Wilmington to share with us!
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