David is an American commercial beekeeper who began keeping bees as a FFA project in 1962 at Mifflinburg Area High School in Pennsylvania.  He started Hackenberg Apiaries, which he runs with his son David. Hackenberg Apiaries moves bees for pollination throughout the United States.

Mr. Hackenberg has been featured in two documentaries about Colony Collapse Disorder, Vanishing of the Bees and Colony: the Endangered World of Bees and has represented the beekeeping industry in front of congress on issues concerning pesticides.

Mr. Hackenberg received the Presidents award from the American Beekeeping Federation in 2008 for bringing the plight of the honey bee to light in the world.

Mr. Hackenberg will share with us what he has seen in bees from the commercial standpoint and how we can as Backyard/Sideliners apply some of the lessons he has learned along the way.

Jennifer for the past 17 years, Jennifer Berry has been the Apicultural Research Professional and Lab Manager for the University of Georgia Honey Bee Program. Her research objectives have focused on improving honey bee health, the sub-lethal effects of pesticides on beneficial insects and IPM techniques for varroa and small hive beetle control.

More recently, Jennifer has undertaken several ambitious campaigns to educate people from all walks of life. She’s volunteered in Central and South America to teach women and young teens the art of beekeeping in order to enhance their ability for better employment and hopefully improve their quality of life. Jennifer has also been instrumental in launching the Georgia Beekeeping Prison Program by certifying inmates through the University of Georgia Master Beekeeper Program. In little over a year, 5 prisons have been added to the fold and are now teaching beekeeping behind bars. Three classes have already been certified, with many more to come. Plus, the prison program is striving to become as self-sustaining as possible, with each prison responsible for supplying something to the mix: queens, bees and/or woodenware. And finally she has been dutifully educating the public about the importance of pollinators and other beneficial insects and how to encourage their populations.

Jennifer is a regular columnist for Bee Culture magazine and occasionally for other publications across the pond. She travels extensively to speak to local, state, national and international students, groups and beekeeping associations. On weekends and evenings, Jennifer operates Honey Pond Farm, a honey bee venture which strives on rearing healthy bees and selecting queens for varroa tolerance, brood production, gentleness, and longevity. Several times a year she sells nucleus colonies and teaches how to rear superior queens at her farm in Georgia.

Dr. Sharashkin is founder of HorizontalHive.com and editor of Keeping Bees With a Smile, a comprehensive resource on keeping bees naturally in horizontal hives. He is contributor to American Bee Journal, The Beekeepers Quarterly (UK), and Acres USA, and speaks internationally on sustainable beekeeping, organic growing, and Earth-friendly living. He holds a PhD in Forestry from the University of Missouri and a Master’s in Natural Resources from Indiana University. Author of world-renowned research in sustainable agriculture, he lives with his wife and four children on a forest homestead in the Ozarks in southern Missouri where they raise bees in a variety of low-maintenance, easy-to-build horizontal hives.

Dr. Tsuruda has been the SC Apiculture Specialist since 2014. Her studies in honey bees began in California, where she worked on foraging behavior and genetics. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue University and studied behavioral resistance to Varroa mites and genomic imprinting. Jennifer maintains Clemson University’s hives for Extension and Research and serves the professional community as past president of the American Association of Professional Apiculturists, former chair of the STEP committee of the Entomological Society of America, and vice chair of the Heartland Apicultural Society.