Iain Glass – Executive Director
I was fortunate to start keeping honey bees with my father when I was very young. I had “my own hive” at seven. I don’t remember learning, but I do remember the rapid changes with “Colony Collapse Disorder” and being dismayed by how these beautiful creatures’ world was changing. One day following a passionate discussion about science, bats and wind turbines, it just hit me that maybe I could effect some changes for our pollinator friends. I would test some genetic / Darwinian principles and if they were successful, at a grass roots level we would scale these and document the results for others to follow the path. The experiments went well. We built a grass roots collaboration. And we have now setup the Federal Non-Profit to “Follow the Science for the Bees”. I am grateful.
David Weldon – Director
With a formal education in chemical engineering I spent most of my adult years working in the pulp and paper industry selling and servicing industrial chemicals. It wasn’t until well into my adult years that I discovered the fascinating world of honey bees. Apis mellifera have a complex and fascinating society and there is so much we can learn from them about ourselves and the world we live in. I started with a package from a beekeeper in Texas who claimed at the time that they hadn’t treated their bees for varroa mites nor disease in over ten years, breeding from survivor colonies and selecting for gentleness. Those bees showed me what is possible and left me convinced that we are not doing our bees any favours when we intervene with chemicals and antibiotics to keep the weak bees alive.