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5-19-20 Tonight at 9PM ET, we’ll be talking with Tom Repas, Master Beekeeper and owner of Canyon Rim Honey Bees, providing bees and honey in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Tom speaks on beekeeping all over the country, and has presented several times at the AMMA MeadCon on both beekeeping and meadmaking. Tom has won a large number of awards for his mead as well.
Tom is a 4th generation beekeeper, and has been working with bees since he was a kid. He kept bees and sold the honey for extra money in high school. He went into professional beekeeping while he was still active as a medical doctor, and has developed a cross for bees that are gentle, overwinter well, and are mite resistant.
Tom was trained in how to perform instrumental insemination of queen bees (from Dr Kaftanoglu at Arizona State University). Now they will have more control over the genetics of their breeder queens as well as the opportunity of collecting the semen from the drones of feral survivor colonies to use for insemination of their virgin queens.
On the mead side of things, Tom is a very talented mead maker who consistently wins medals with his meads, and has a skill for thinking outside the box for flavor profiles. His mushroom mead was the talk of the mead community for some time when he brought it out to taste. I got to try it, I was stunned at how good it was. Of course, Tom uses his own honey, as well as honeys from other providers and areas, and they’re all good!
We’ll talk bees, hive management, meadmaking and honey tonight.
Come on in and have a listen!
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If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we’ll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let’s talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you’re a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow.
New Honey on Sale!
African Bronze Honey in Ontario, CA is offering Zambian Dark Honey 60% off: 3.85/lb in 375g squeeze pks or Tanzanian Amber Gold Honey 60lb overfill pail $3.07/lb Plus 6 lbs FREE! It has a smoky, spicy note, w/ caramel and tobacco flavor. Go get yours: https://www.africanbronzehoney.com/collections/gotmead-collection
Coming up:
- May 26 – Upper Midwest Mead – Steve Fletty, Josh Holbrook & Kevin Meintsma
- June 2 – Upper Midwest Mead Part 2 – Adam Bystrom, Josh Mahoney & Matt Weide
Show links and notes
- Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff
- Take part in Kevin Meintsma’s Hydromel Study – email hydromel@wtibiz.com and he’ll send you questions
- Honeyberry information
- The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm
- Apple varietals and where they grow – http://orangepippen.com
- National Honey Board Mead Crafter Compeitition
Upcoming Events
- July 22-25 Mazer Cup International, Broomfield, CO
- September 26-28 AMMA MeadCon, Broomfield, CO
- Due to the pandemic, most meaderies cannot have events or open their taprooms, and are offering their mead via online and pickup service. You can find an ongoing list at https://gotmead.com/blog/meaderies/support-meaderies-during-coronavirus-where-to-get-mead-online-and-pickup/
- Visit our mead directory at https://gotmead.com/blog/commercial-mead/
Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at gotmeadlive@gotmead.com and tell us about it!
She is also an experienced marketing coach and consultant who has recently decided to focus her marketing expertise exclusively on the craft beverage market to help meaderies, cideries, breweries and distilleries expand their business and get more customers while doing what they love.