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General Meeting April 2023

Pierce County Beekeepers Association General Meeting Minutes from Monday, Apr. 6, 2023

Meeting time: 7:10 pm to 8:22 pm

 

Mary Dempsey (Club President) Called the meeting to order at 7:10 pm

Business:

  • Alisa Shorey had an update on bee delivery: Due to the crazy California weather, package and queen delivery will be pushed out another 2 weeks to the April 29th weekend. Alisa will send out texts to everyone on the exact time to pick up their bees.

  • Mary introduced herself again to the new people attending the meeting and gave some of her background.

  • Mary talked about some of the benefits of joining the club, and volunteer opportunities.

  • Modern Cuisine magazine is going to come to our apiary this summer. They are doing a feature on honey and sugar and our club will be involved. We want to make sure our apiary is in great shape for that visit, and we can only do that with volunteers.

  • We are still looking for a treasurer. We also need more donations for the silent auction.

  • We voted on automatic membership renewal through the website. This would mean instead of all club memberships expiring in the same month, memberships will expire/automatically renew on the anniversary of each person’s sign-up date. Doing this entails a bylaws change so needed the approval of the general club membership and not just the board.

    • SR Balukoff motioned for the vote.

    • Motion was seconded by several people.

    • Verbal vote was taken by Mary.

    • Results: Voting was all in favor of the change. (No “no” votes.)

  • Club is going to need volunteers to prepare the garden area for the pollinator garden—we will plant next year, but we need to do prep this year and need volunteers for that.

  • Next board meeting is April 27th. Please contact Mary Dempsey if interested in attending for the location (all are welcome).

  • Kathleen Clerc talked about creating community captains for different areas in Pierce County. These would act as de facto mentors for people in their neighborhood (within reasonable time commitments). Kathleen has a sign-up sheet if you are interested in being a community captain. Mary elaborated that we’re working toward having a more developed mentor program within the club, and this is part of that.

  • Mary mentioned we need more volunteers for the Spring fair (April 13-16, 20-23). Mary will give out entrance passes and parking passes for those signed up tonight (and for those who sign up after tonight, ticket pickup will be in Puyallup). Sign-up went out to the website, Facebook and via e-mail list.

  • There was a question about donations and accompanying 503c tax form to solicit donations—Mary says she has those forms available tonight for anyone who wants one for soliciting donations to the club.

  • We are participating in the Master Gardeners Plant sale, The Tacoma Sustainability Expo, Pierce County Fair, and the Point Defiance Garden Festival.

  • Mary answered a question about what kinds of donations we’re looking for for the silent auction next month—basically anything, not necessarily beekeeping-related.

  • The next club meeting will be at 6:00pm on May 1st and will feature a special speaker, Nick Nagear who will talk about mushrooms and nutrition. There will be no class at next month’s meeting.

  • Kathleen answered a question about the gardening plots. We’ll be working with gardening-inclined people in the club to determine the best way to plant these spaces, and determine with WSU any restrictions we might have on what we can do with the space.

Presentation:

Presentation by Mary Kline, RLA: “Apiary Right Plant, Right Place”

At the end of the excellent presentation, there was some discussion about pesticide spraying by the county, as that will be starting up soon, and a person who works for that specific department was in attendance. It was clear that there doesn’t seem to be any kind of partnership between the WSDA (with whom beekeepers register the locations of their apiaries) and the county; There was also discussion about whether our club could get involved with that to foster a partnership that may lead to fewer hive poisonings. Kathleen seemed very interested in having the club pursue this.

Wrap up:

  • After the presentation, Mary once again asked for volunteers. There are also a limited number of migratory covers available at the back of the building after the meeting donated by Dennis Carlson. First come first served. All were taken.

  • Door prize was drawn and awarded. (It was some smoker pellets and a queen clip.)

Meeting adjourned at 8:22pm.

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