Longtime beekeeper recalls teaching workshops and selling local honey

Introduced in the program as Bill Mayers, the speaker recounted learning beekeeping from a retired geologist named Arnold Waters and later teaching classes that connected classroom instruction with hands-on practice at the Intervale. He described work with the Vermont Beekeepers Association to relocate teaching hives to the Intervale and recalled teaching roughly 800–900 people over several years.

Mayers said beekeeping combines art and science and emphasized human stewardship of pollinators: "The bees, frankly, are not gonna survive without humans now," he said. He also noted a small commercial tie: he and partners operate BTV Honey and sell to local food hubs and buyers that source from the Intervale's social-enterprise market channels.