Table of Contents
- Letter from the President
- Letter From the Vice President
- Letter from the Secretary
- 2025 Best in Show: Spicy Hot Honey Barbecue Sauce
- Upcoming Educational Events
- Norroa – The Jury is Still Out
- This and That
Letter from the President
Well, winter is upon us. It seems we went from a dry fall where we were wondering if there would even be a fall honey flow to scrambling to get treatments done and food stores built up to get through winter. But that is typical of beekeeping. I hope everyone is already thinking and starting to prepare for spring. If we’re not thinking three months ahead we are behind.
Speaking of thinking in advance, I hope everyone is planning to attend the ACES Spring Yymposium in February at its new location. ABA will be their helping as always. Also, we here in Alabama are thrilled about having American Beekeeping Federation conference here in January in Mobile. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at both.
Speaking of conferences, we are already in the planning stages for your Fall ABA conference and will have details coming out in the next months.
I hope everyone has their bees in good shape for the next few months. We all have losses but just as our bees we are resilient and seem to always recover and not give up.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas, and a Blessed New Year.
Hal Hendrix
President ABA
Letter From the Vice President
HAPBEE DECEMBER my beekeeping friends! I pray that you all have a BLESSED Christmas and a HAPBEE & safe New year!
This is the short period where bee keepers have a teeny break! Bees are clustered, Forgage is limited, keep an eye on the weight of your hives! January is coming soon, to Do some clean up, do some building and start getting ready for the 2026 bee year!
I would love to invite you all to our AMERICAN BEE FEDERATION conference in Mobile, January 7-10 2026! We are in need of volunteers for this program. Please reach out to me if you desire to help for this Confrence. Auburn will host ACES bee symposium February 7, 2026. Let me know if you would like to help out with this event too!
Ya’ll BEE BLESSED!
Allyson A. Andrews
Letter from the Secretary
Happy Holidays to everyone!
I’m looking forward to spring! I can’t wait to see if my bees made it, if my flowers come back up, and what this spring at Foxhound’s new location will be like!
Our ABA board is already preparing for the 2026 Fall Conference, and it is going to be great. Be thinking about who you’d like to nominate for Beekeeper of the Year, and think about encouraging a young beekeeper to apply for the Young Beekeeper Scholarship.
The North American Honey Bee Expo (NAHBE) is coming up in January in Louisville, Kentucky, as is the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) Conference in Mobile, Alabama. Then in February there’s the Alabama Cooperative Extension (ACES) conference in Hanceville, Alabama. We have got lots of opportunities to catch up on our beekeeping knowledge and community before the beekeeping season hits.
In January all the local clubs will start back up, so try to find one to join if you haven’t already and get involved. There’s always something to learn and ways to grow as a beekeeper.
I wish you all a Happy Holiday Season and a wonderful 2026.
Amy Seiber, Secretary
2025 Best in Show: Spicy Hot Honey Barbecue Sauce
A sneaky, hot barbecue sauce made with partially fermented hot honey base. The degree of hot can be adjusted to personal taste. This recipe started out as a barbeque sauce but it is excellent on fried chicken or hot wings
Barbecue Sauce Recipe
4 cups ketchup
½ cup prepared mustard
½ cup white vinegar
2 cups pepper infused hot honey base*
¼ cup Dales Marinade
Heat all ingredients except honey to a low boil for 3-5 minutes. Mix throughly with an immersion blender. Remove from heat. Combine honey with the hot mixture. Blend throughly. Ladle into ho pressure canning jars, cap with 2 part lids. Place in a boiling water bath for 10- 15 minutes. Shake well before using. Refrigerate after opening.
*Hot Honey Base
Loosely fill a ½ gallon jar with clean fresh habanero peppers. Fill with wildflower honey. Cap. Allow to sit for 6 months. Over the 6 months there is some degree of fermentation in the jar due to the natural moisture of the fresh peppers. After 6 months strain the peppers out of the honey. The partially fermented liquid honey is too hot for mere mortals. For the hot honey I mixed 5 parts of my wildflower honey with 1 part infused honey. At that ratio the taste of the honey and the heat of the peppers can be appreciated without too much pain. You will taste the honey first then wait for it – the heat.
David and Lori White, holding their ribbons in Black Jar, Best of Show and Grand Champion categories of the 2025 Alabama Honey Show. They each have their own kitchen at their home in Phenix City where they create wonderful recipes from their hives and garden bounty. We can’t wait to see what they enter in 2026!
Upcoming Educational Events
JANUARY 6 – 10, 2026 – Don’t Miss Out! The American Beekeeping Federation Conference is Coming to Alabama!
Fellow Alabama Beekeepers, if you haven’t already, mark your calendars! We are incredibly fortunate to host the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) 2026 Conference and Tradeshow right here in our own backyard, Mobile, AL, from January 6–10. This is a rare and exciting opportunity—the conference is often held far across the country, so let’s show the ABF some Alabama hospitality!
Your Chance to Connect and Learn Whether you’re a hobbyist or a commercial operator, this conference is the industry’s premier event for learning and networking. You’ll have access to:
- Incredible Keynote Speakers and dozens of Breakaway Classes
- The highly competitive Honey Show
- A massive Vendor Showroom
- Social events like the Banquet and Live Auction
- The wonderful Kids & Bees educational workshop, plus other auctions and raffle drawings.
This is truly the best opportunity to connect with beekeepers, researchers, and suppliers from across North America! We encourage everyone who can attend to do so.
Support the ABF & Showcase Alabama Honey
The ABF works tirelessly on behalf of all beekeepers, advocating for legislative actions concerning honey bee health and research, and ensuring the purity of honey in the market. Membership in the ABF provides essential benefits, including legislative updates and free monthly educational webinars—the last one was about successfully entering honey into a honey show!
Call for Honey Donations: The North American Honey Bar
The ABF is kicking off a brand-new feature: the North American Honey Bar! Each participating state will have a display featuring our state flag and honey for all attendees to sample, giving a taste of honey varieties from across the country. This will be set up Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
We need your help to represent Alabama! We are asking for donations of 3 different varieties of honey (at least 3 pounds of each).
If you are interested in donating honey for this exciting display, please contact Rebekah Hargraves immediately to coordinate delivery. Let’s make Alabama’s display the sweetest! I hope to see y’all there.
Rebekah Hargraves
Certified Master Beekeeper
B’s Bees, LLC
C: (865) 617-9935
Just a P.S.
If you’re in the area for the ABF conference, please come see me at B’s Bees Apiary and Store in Loxley, we’re right of of I-10 about 20 minutes outside of Mobile.
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JANUARY 8-10, 2026 North American Honey Bee Expo
This year’s NAHBE unfortunately takes place during the ABF conference. For those wanting information on this event please please check https://www.nahbexpo.com/.
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FEBRUARY 7, 2026 31st Annual Alabama Beekeepers Symposium
The 31st Annual Alabama Beekeepers Symposium will take place Saturday, February 7, 2026, at the Wallace State Community College School of Nursing and Center for Science in Hanceville, Alabama. Check-in begins at 8:00 a.m. and is located at the building’s center doors at 453 Frances Dodd Drive, Hanceville, AL 35077. The symposium begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m. The cost to attend is $45, and online registration is required by February 1. After February 1, the registration fee increases to $55 and is payable at the door the day of the event. Lunch and refreshments are included in the registration cost.
Keynote speakers for the event include Cameron Jack—an assistant professor of honeybee toxicology with the University of Florida—and Jon Zawislak, an assistant professor of apiculture at the University of Arkansas. The symposium will include a day-long beginner beekeeping workshop and several other educational tracks to choose from. Hotels, registration and other information is available at https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/lawn-garden/alabama-beekeepers-symposium/.
Hope to see you there!
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March 14, 2025 – Journey to becoming a Certified Honey Judge
Norroa – The Jury is Still Out
There’s been a lot of buzz about a new tool in the fight against varroa that was released mid October. Many consider Norroa, the market name for Vadescana, to be a radical new treatment. The concept of disrupting the reproductive cycle of a pest has been around for decades however, evidenced by the fact that there have been multiple reproductive disrupters created for other pests out there for years. Science has only just now been able to produce a product that targets Varroa disrupter.
Vadescana, the active ingredient, works through RNA interference (RNAi) which uses double stranded RNA (dsRNA) to “prevent the expression of a specific gene that the Varroa mite needs to survive”. In other words, it messes up offspring DNA so they can’t successfully procreate. It is highly specific to Varroa mites and does not affect bees, humans or other non-target organisms. It’s basically a designer chemical that only affects the mite.
Both the EPA and the State of Alabama have approved it and it’s wicked simple to install – just place a pouch or two on top of the hive frames or bottom board, allowing bees to access the syrup. That’s it.
Is it as effective as they advertise? So far beekeepers have reported positive experiences with Norroa. It’s winter though, and we’ve not had a chance to try it approaching spring. The product is advertised to last up to 18 weeks so application late winter or early spring should conceivably put a hive in optimal health during honey flow.
We love our spring honey sales for sure, but that brings up another issue with Norroa – it’s not cheap. Single pouches run $10 – 11 each. OUCH! Right! But that’s something increased honey production should easily make up for, and hopefully for the other two or three times a year it would be needed depending on how you manage your colonies.
So should you try it? Heck Yeah! This beekeeper is excited to get my hands on some and look forward to seeing my counts going into spring. I’m also hoping to see some controlled studies between well managed hives using tried and true varroa controls vs hives using Vadescana only.
Time will tell, but the Jury is most hopeful.
This and That
Calling all Nuc Providers:
I am compliling a list of Alabama nuc sellers; this list will be a handout at our Beginning Beekeeping course and available to any other Alabama beekeeper or beekeeper wannabe who wants a copy. If you are selling nucs in 2026, please let me know. I would like your contact information and as much information about your nucs (e.g; where you are located, 2026 price and approximate available delivery dates). You can contact me at wgmiller@aol.com.
Bill Miller
Wiregrass Beekeepers Association
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Trenton’s First Halloween
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