2020 VBA Winter Meeting Beekeeper Recognition Awards

Jane is passionate about pollinator habitat enhancement and loves any opportunity to spread the word. She is a full-time farmer and co-owner of River Berry Farm, an organic fruit and vegetable farm in Fairfax, Vermont, where she grows and sells native plants for pollinators on-farm and through her on-line nursery, Northeast Pollinator Plants.

She recently launched Northeast Wild Seed Collectors, a website to encourage and coordinate efforts to collect and to provide native plant business’ access to local provenance native seeds with a focus on plants for pollinator habitat.

She served on the Vermont Pollinator Protection Committee who recommended legislation for pollinator protection and has testified to the state legislature to restrict neonicotinoid pesticide use.

Jane teaches one course at UVM, Landscape Design for Pollinators, and is a retired landscape architect with 14 years experience."

Mark’s work at UVM brings enthusiastic and younger skilled beekeepers to Vermont and enlivens VBA events and meetings with their presence. This infusion of young beekeepers is crucial to the bees and to organized beekeeping Mark is a teacher and mentor to hundreds of students, many of whom will become his friends and colleagues and possibly even members of our association.

He dedicates his personal time to volunteer as advisor to UVM Beekeepers Club. He inspires and trains hundreds of beekeepers each year, many of whom will continue as beekeepers – all will retain their lifelong understanding and care for honeybees and wild pollinators.

As a VBA mentee, Sarah asked lots of questions and, importantly, did a lot of research herself and then brought to her VBA Mentor, Kim, a proposed course of action. Kim would then explain the pros and cons of each approach and then Sarah would decide on a course of action then learn from it. I tried to not tell her what to do, unless she was proposing something that would definitively have a negative impact. Sarah visited Kim’s apiary and spent several hours there, asking questions and watching work the bees. Sarah said she learned a lot from that.

Sarah epitomized the purpose of the VBA mentoring program. She took the initiative to learn on her own and used her mentor to learn about options. Importantly, she took initiative to learn and was willing to take direction when her own plans needed a course correction.

The Mraz family have been influential in the beekeeping world within Vermont and the world. Bill and Chas have helped an incredible number of new beekeepers to become more knowledgeable and successful as beekeepers. They regularly host open hive workshops for the Addison County Beekeepers Association and for the VBA North Yard at the Intervale in Burlington.