SCBA General Meeting

June 8, 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location: Druid Hall - 1011 College Ave, Santa Rosa

Our Guest Speaker: Benjamin Rutschmann

Benjamin Rutschmann is a honey bee researcher and ecologist, with a special focus on wild-living colonies, their nesting sites, and forage resources. He received his PhD from the University of Würzburg in 2022 for research in this area. Together with Patrick Kohl, he published the first systematic survey of wild-living honey bee colonies in Europe, demonstrating that they still occur in Central European forests. Building on this, he has studied the life histories and survival of wild colonies in Germany, Spain, and Switzerland to assess whether these populations are self-sustaining. He has also contributed to research projects across Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America, including citizen science-based monitoring in Germany and Switzerland. More recently, he co-authored a framework to assess wild Apis mellifera populations in Europe, which helped inform their recent classification as an Endangered taxon in the EU for the IUCN Red List.

He is in Sonoma County, working with Michael Thiele and Apis Arborea on research at the Galbreath Wildlands Preserve

Pre-meeting education series with Christine Kurtz at 4:30 

Come early and learn about Bee Diseases from Christine Kurtz