Melanie Kirby & Mark Spitzig
Of Zia Queen Bees will be speaking Saturday February 22nd at the County Extension office in Alamogordo.
Melanie and her husband Mark run the highly respected Zia Queen Bees in Truchas New Mexico. Zia is known for their “Survivor” queens. All of their breeding stock has endured through at least two winters and many through three or four. Melanie has been keeping bees professionally for 17 years and Mark for 14. Last year, Melanie served as the President of the Western Apicultural Society of North America She is one of the founders of the Rocky Mountain Survivor Queen Bee Cooperative. She is also the editor of the monthly Kelley Beekeeping online newsletter (www.kelleybees.com). Mark has been further developing his LongeviBee Breeding line which will launch this summer 2014.
Together they will be talking about the roll of the queen bee in the hive as the core and primary force behind behavior and management and how it relates to choices of genetic selection. Melanie and Mark allow Father Time and Mother Nature to test their honeybee stock- basing their selection on longevity- which serves as the umbrella trait for hive characteristics. They are both full of enthusiasm for their profession and believe that “it takes a community to raise bees.”
This is short notice and it will be well worth putting off what you had planned. They are squeezing us in between beekeeping trips to teach queen rearing in Jamaica and in northern California.
Cost is $10.00, it will run from 1:00pm until about 4:00 or longer if we can keep them.
The County Extension office is at the Alamogordo Fairgrounds at 401 Fairgrounds, Alamogordo, New Mexico
Please contact Rob Shepler to reserve your spot! 575-687-2343 or rob@theriver.com