Some of our members during a queen rearing workshop given by Les Crowder.
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About naobaNorthern Arizona Organic Beekeepers’ Association is a voluntary association of mostly small-scale, organic beekeepers and their supporters. Patrick Pynes founded the group in the fall of 2013. About thirty people attended NAOBA’s first meeting at the Sedona Community Center on February 1, 2014. We have also held meetings at the homes and apiaries of our members; at the Verde Valley School in the Village of Oak Creek; and at the Center for Organic Beekeeping (COB) in Flagstaff.
NAOBA’s members reside in several different communities across northern and central Arizona. Besides Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek, "NAOBAns" live in Cottonwood, Camp Verde, Rimrock, Flagstaff, and Winslow—to name a few. There are NAOBAns who are teenagers and others who are octogenarians, and everyone in between. Some NAOBAns take care of dozens of beehives, others take care of one or none, but all are deeply interested in sustainable, organic, and honeybee-centric apicultural practices, and in the fate of the honeybee. |
Our purpose statement: |
“The purpose of this association is to support the efforts of its members as they work together to advance the health and well being of honeybees, and to encourage organic beekeeping practices in our home bioregion. We will accomplish these purposes through education, research, entrepreneurship, and advocacy.”
These last four are our main focus areas at present, and we have formed small groups to explore and develop these focus areas. For example, the Research Group is using botanical collection and pollen analysis techniques to develop a “honeybee flora” for the Verde Valley of Arizona: a list of flowering plants known to be pollen and/or nectar sources for honeybees. The bioregion referred to in NAOBA’s purpose statement refers to two major, adjacent watersheds that are both connected to the Mogollon Rim. We call this the “Red and Green Bioregion” (see map below). The Red encompasses the watershed of the Little Colorado River (north of the Mogollon Rim; colorado=red) and the Green encompasses the watershed of the Verde River (south of the Mogollon Rim; verde=green). As of this date (April 5, 2017), NAOBA has applied for status as a non-profit 501(c)3 organization with the Arizona Corporation Commission and the Internal Revenue Service. We are excited to report that our application process is nearly complete. We are extremely grateful to Holly Lyman of Wild Tonic Jun Kombucha for her moral and financial support during this application process. This important first step in achieving non-profit status for NAOBA could not have been accomplished without Wild Tonic's friendship and support. Wa do. Gracias. Thanks! For more information about Wild Tonic, visit their website: wildtonic.com For more information about NAOBA or to lend your support, please write to this address: naoba.org@gmail.com |
