Who We Are and What We Do

About the VBA
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Board member bios

Since 1886, the Vermont Beekeepers Association has promoted the general welfare of Vermont's Apiculture Industry while sustaining a friendly body of unity among the state's beekeepers. 

The Vermont Beekeepers Association (VBA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization that represents the interests of Vermont beekeepers.


VBA members range from hobbyists with one or a few colonies to sideliners who try to make some extra income from their 25-200 colonies to full-time professional migratory and commercial apiculture enterprises.

Beekeeping is an agricultural endeavor, and honey is an agricultural specialty crop commodity like maple, apples, and veggies. In total, Vermont's 14,000 colonies produce about 700,000 pounds of honey per year. The VBA is an advocate for the health of our colonies and the health of our business statewide.

Our educational efforts help our members learn to be successful at keeping healthy, thriving, and therefore, productive colonies. The learning curve to successfully keep honey bees is very steep. Honey bees are incredibly sensitive to perturbations driven by weather, pesticides, diseases, pests, and seasonal changes. The VBA offers many ways to learn how to deal with these issues.

As a VBA member, you'll be able to share in these benefits. The VBA:

• Instructs beginning beekeepers and supports experienced ones with tested information and practices.
• Shares information about issues facing bees and their solutions.
• Helps develop markets for products from the hive.
• Is alert to state and national laws related to apiculture in Vermont, including colony health issues and beekeeping business matters.
• Advocates for Vermont Beekeepers on issues important to the health of honey bee colonies and the health of the apiculture business in Vermont.
• Promotes understanding between the beekeepers of the state, the nation, and the world.
• Promotes public awareness of the importance of honey bees for pollination.
• Fosters interactions with the other members of the agricultural community.
• Maintains a user-friendly website full of resources and features for beekeepers.
• Offers website information to help landowners protect and encourage honey bees and other pollinators.
• Sends VBA News communications via email and social media.
• Provides a Mentor Program and Beekeeper Helpline.
• Holds educational workshops for beekeepers in person at the VBA South bee yard.
• Conducts many Zoom educational workshops that a recorded for later viewing.
• Members get a discount for Cornell's Master Beekeeping program.
• Holds semi-annual winter and summer membership meetings, bringing in well-respected and interesting local, regional, national, and international presenters.
• List website sources for bees and queens.
• Provides a website list of swarm removers.
• Offers cookbooks and apparel.
• Members get a discounted subscription (20%) to Bee Culture magazine when placed by telephone.

The VBA Board of Directors: 

President: Bianca Braman
Vice President: Colin Whitehouse
Treasurer: Richard Roy
Membership Secretary: Mary Stoddard
Recording Secretary: Dannah Bresser
Director at Large: Fred Putnam, Jr.
Immediate Past President: Jeff Battaglini

Meet Bianca Braman

Born and raised in the Adirondacks, Bianca is an adventurous person who loves to spend much of her time outside. 

After an education in Communications and years of working indoors, she discovered a fierce interest in honey bees. 

She was an active member of the Champlain Valley Beekeepers Association of New York before she attended a lecture given to the club by Michael Palmer. Impressed by his depth of knowledge, Bianca asked if she could visit Palmer's operation - and she did. Bianca worked with Mike for six seasons. Mike taught her how to graft, and she developed a thorough understanding of his queen rearing methodology. 

In 2021, Bianca became a partner in Vermont Bees LLC and now brings her knowledge of bees to bear on her own beekeeping operation of over 400 colonies.

In 2022, Bianca was accepted to the Education on the Production and Insemination of Queen Bees (EPIQ) Program at Penn State. In 2023, she was one of 6 people selected from the EPIQ Program to train in instrumental insemination techniques with world renowned bee breeder, Sue Cobey. In 2024 Penn State asked her to assist with the teaching of their Drone program. 

Bianca's work with bees has been featured in Adirondack Life Magazine and Inside The Hive TV. She was also invited to speak about her experience as a woman in beekeeping at Columbia University in 2020 and at Apiscandia 2024 in Sweden.

In her time outside of work Bianca is a trustee of the Swanton Library Board, runs a book club there called “But I Progress”, and enjoys time in her garden.

Meet Colin Whitehouse

Colin, an 8th-generation Vermonter, was born and raised in the Green Mountain State, where a lifelong connection to the land led him naturally to beekeeping. He began his journey in 2023 after purchasing property and seeking new ways to support and steward the local environment. Inspired by his experience in the Master Gardener program and his passion for gardening and orchards, Colin saw beekeeping as a rewarding way to foster pollinator health and deepen his relationship with nature.

Today, Colin runs White Rocks Apiary, home to a dozen colonies that forage in and around the Green Mountain National Forest. This unique environment produces honey with complex, seasonal flavor profiles and rich color. In 2025, Colin's honey was recognized at the Vermont Beekeepers Association Winter Meeting, earning both a Best of Class ribbon.

A hands-on learner, Colin finds beekeeping both calming and intellectually stimulating. He’s currently expanding his knowledge in queen rearing and cut comb production, and regularly attends VBA workshops and open hive sessions. He’s a member of both the Addison County Beekeepers Association and the Windham County Beekeepers Club, and enjoys sharing knowledge and learning from others in the community.

In addition to his apiary work, Colin volunteers at the Tunbridge Fair, representing the VBA and engaging with the public to raise awareness about bees and pollination. He values opportunities like these to support the broader mission of education and outreach.

Outside the hive, Colin enjoys hunting, hiking, gardening, and working on his property—continuing a deep-rooted family legacy of land stewardship in Vermont.

Grateful for the education and connections he’s found through the Vermont Beekeepers Association, Colin joined the VBA Board of Directors to give back. His goal is to help the organization grow, thrive, and continue offering meaningful learning opportunities for beekeepers of all levels.

Meet Richard Roy

 

Richard on the left with two of his mentees.

Richard started keeping bees in 2015, when he was seventy years old.

In a previous life, he was a Jesuit seminarian for six years and a high school English teacher for thirty-eight, thirty-three of which he spent at South Burlington High School.

Richard lived in Kingston, Jamaica, for four years where he taught at St. George’s College and earned his M.A. in English at the University of the West Indies. It was at UWI in a course on Shakespeare that he met his wife. He also taught one year in Trinidad, his wife’s home. 

Richard’s final teaching venture abroad was at Nobertuscollege in Roosendaal, The Netherlands, where he taught English as part of the Fulbright Teacher Exchange.

Richard has been the VBA treasurer since 2018. He also actively mentors newer beekeepers as part of VBA’s mentoring program.

Meet Mary Stoddard

VBA Board member Mary Stoddard at her first-place prize-winning

Tunbridge Fair booth flanked by her husband, Bob, on the left

and the late Bill Mares on the right.

Mary is an enthusiastic hobbyist beekeeper who embraced her partner Bob’s beekeeping hobby in 2015 when they moved to Vermont. Mary is passionate about their bees and enjoys learning about bees and beekeeping through workshops, hands-on experiences, reading, online classes, and talking to other beekeepers. Over the years, Bob and Mary have had an average of six hives in their backyard. They live in Sharon, VT, on an old dairy farm on a hill where they hay their fields, have chickens, a large vegetable garden, fruit trees, cultivated berries, and flower gardens. They also process honey which they sell and make candles and salves with their bees’ wax. Mary conscientiously manages their fields, gardens, and forest lands to benefit pollinators, birds, and wildlife.

Mary joined VBA in 2016. She began volunteering on the Tunbridge World’s Fair committee in 2019 and now heads that committee with the support of amazing VBA volunteers. She has also helped organize the Summer Meeting in Strafford and has volunteered to setup and breakdown the VBA booth at the VT Flower Show for the past two shows.

Mary is originally from South Salem, New York and worked as a middle school special education teacher for over 20 years before retiring and moving to Vermont. She has extensive experience working on union and professional committees. Mary believes in giving back to her community if one is able. She currently volunteers as the coordinator of the Sharon Food Shelf, has served as a library trustee, and continues to volunteer at her local library. Mary looks forward to supporting VBA’s mission, its membership, and to continue learning about bees.

Meet Dannah Bresser

Meet Fred Putnam, Jr.

 

Fred grew up on a dairy farm. Their farm focus was dairy and field crops, but they had some beef and chickens. They produced maple syrup in season. Fred’s 4-H projects were dairy, vegetable-growing (which he still does), and tractor operation (still does that, too!) He helped on that farm for decades and witnessed many situations that now influence his position on issues facing honey bees, especially the resistance that pests and plants have developed to agricultural chemicals.

He graduated from the University of New Hampshire in Soil Science with a strong emphasis in geology and other areas. He worked for the U.S.D.A. Forest Service on the Green Mountain National and Finger Lakes National Forests in Vermont and New York for 37 years. In that job, many opportunities arose: wildland firefighting in the east and west, a stint doing remote sensing work next door to the Johnson Space Center, and work travel to many locations in the country among others.

Over the 37 years with the Forest Service, he served in positions as Soil Scientist, Outdoor Recreation Specialist (trail systems, campgrounds, Wildernesses, etc.), Certified Silviculturist, and Occupational Safety and Health Specialist certified in General Industry, Construction Industry, and Industrial Hygiene (which has direct pertinence to beekeeping.) These job transitions required continuing education with each change.

Fred ran a small homesite planning, septic system design, and subdivision permit consulting business for a couple of decades. Now, he and his wife run a beekeeping business and sell some sweet corn as well. The learning curve in beekeeping is very steep; Fred likes that. He continues to participate in transformative learning opportunities but also tries to give back by presenting workshops to help other beekeepers.

Fred has concerns about the adverse impacts of some agricultural practices and does what he can to get them changed.

Fred worked on the Boards of several non-profits over the years - some as President – for an aggregate of about 30 years of involvement prior to being on the VBA Board. He is also the Vice President of the Vermont Farm Show Board of Trustees. He likes strengthening an organization’s foundation from within but also feels strongly about maintaining good working relationships with partners in the public and private sectors. He thoroughly enjoys work that requires organizing things and visioning for the future!

One of his top interests is interacting with and supporting the volunteer members of our organization and associated clubs. He has a longer-term vision of collaboration between the VBA and local Vermont and neighboring state beekeeping clubs to the benefit of beekeepers and apiculture in Vermont.

Above all, though, Fred is back to producing agricultural commodity specialty crops – this time, honey and sweet corn – and that is where he is really at home. Call him a farm kid at heart.

Meet Jeff Battaglini

Jeff started his beekeeping journey years before he brought his first hive home. He noticed there were very few pollinators around the native Vermont landscape. So he started researching bees and talking to local beekeepers. He joined the Vermont Beekeepers Association (VBA) and all the local beekeeping clubs he could find. Jeff also started taking beekeeping classes and broke ground on his apiary site in October 2014. 

He brought his first Vermont bees home in June 2015. Jeff continued his beekeeping education by attending club meetings, open hives, workshops, events, and classes at every opportunity. He also continued studying beekeeping books and manuals and meeting other beekeepers. By the following fall, his three nucs had turned into 10 hives. By the following summer, he had 20-plus hives and three bee yards. Jeff and his partner, Lesley, also formed an LLC called WeisBatty Bees in 2016. Then the next year, WeisBatty Bees took honorable mention for cut comb honey at the VBA’s winter show. 

In 2018, Jeff and Lesley were encouraged to form a county club in support of beekeepers in Windham County. Jeff liked the idea and spoke with many other southern Vermont beekeepers. He was then elected as president of the Windham County Beekeepers (WCB) in February 2019. With Jeff at the helm, WCB hosted the VBA’s summer meeting in Townshend in July of 2019. At the same meeting, he gave a presentation on oxalic acid vaporization for varroa mite management. 

Since then, Jeff has taught beekeeping and mead classes and has enthralled kids with beek tales. He has also spearheaded events for WCB, including a booth at the Honey Festival with other club members, mentored newbees, completed an online beekeeping class at Cornell, built an observation hive and countless hive components, and started the journey to become a certified Vermont beekeeper. 

He established a WCB club yard with the help of other club members and continues to teach the way of the honey bee and honey bee management.