June Meeting - Guest Speaker Toni Burnham

At our June meeting, Toni Burnham, beekeeper and author of the City Bees blog (citybees.blogspot.com) gave us an outstanding presentation about her experiences in beekeeping in the Washington DC area. We sincerely appreciated her driving up to Cumberland for the meeting. She keeps hives on her rooftop in DC and at several other locations. Her City Bees blog is a record of her experiences as she learned beekeeping, expanded to other locations, and began speaking to other groups about beekeeping. In addition to her rooftop, she has astutely found private, protected locations for beekeeping in an urban setting including a monastery and a public park. In short she is a case study of what beekeepers go through in learning beekeeping, expanding, and then trying to share the knowledge by mentoring others. Her City Bees blog is how she has documented and passes on what she has learned. She described the wide range of bee friendly plantings in range of her residence. She also brought a large selection of her soaps that she has made and she very graciously gave our members samples. It was an exceptional lesson in overcoming any potential obstacles that might have prevented beekeeping in her setting. Her spirit of giving, and her willingness to share her beekeeping experiences, are key indicators of her success. We sincerely appreciated her visit and presentation.