Megan Denver
Megan’s interest in beekeeping began as a young child on her father’s dairy farm near Delhi, New York where they kept beehives behind the sugar shack. After moving to Woodstock, New York she knew the first project for the property was a bee yard and she’s been hooked on beekeeping ever since.
She’s been working in the bees for eighteen years now and is a Cornell Master Beekeeper. She is the Apimondia President of the Scientific Commission on Beekeeping for Rural Development and the founder of Bees for Development, North America whos mission is to support the work of Bees for Development https://www.beesfordevelopment.org. She is also proudly serves on the board of Pollinator Partnership https://pollinator.org.
With Jorik they run hundreds of hives, teach at the shop and sell honey, bee packages, queens and nucs. Her goal in starting HVBee was to create a hub of resources for local beekeepers and help grow a strong and sustainable beekeeping community in the Hudson Valley, New York.
Jorik Phillips
Jorik began his fascination with bees when he installed his first seven colonies in hives of his own making. Since then, his fascination has grown into a passion and full time business.
His first years were spent learning to divide his large colonies into smaller nucleus colonies. Eager to expand his rapidly growing hobby, he began queen rearing and seeking out different races of bees and becoming familiar with their traits. He began focusing on the ones with favorable attributes and best suited to the northern region, all the while broadening the genetic diversity of the stock in his apiary.
Part of his growing business included removing bees from old barns and farm houses near his home in Huntersland, New York. He started noticing a recurring story of how these wild bees had lived on their own for decades in these buildings. It seemed only logical to incorporate these feral, survivor bees into his genetic pool, which he continues to do. With Megan he now runs hundreds of hives, teaches, sells nucs, honey and queens.
Ryan Carroll