The Lane County Beekeepers Association is preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Andre ́ Sirois, who serves on the organization’s board of directors, has been keeping bees on his farm in south Eugene since the pandemic. The club was not meeting in person at the time due to the pandemic, but Sirois started attending meetings in 2023 and has been involved ever since.
Sirois said keeping bees has been a humbling experience, but that’s why the club is there: To help new keepers with challenges of caring for bees.
“I think in general, it's a great challenge, right? And when you succeed at the great challenge, it's incredibly rewarding,” said Sirois. “And I think really what it is for everybody is that there's a lot of reward in it, even if you struggle.”
The club has monthly meetings that offer social and educational activities. Sirois said the locally focused education on beekeeping is very helpful, since local plants and environment can have a great effect on the bees.
“The main thing with bee farming is that you know you can go online and there's a lot of information on there. But what works here in Lane County doesn't work in Linn County, doesn't work in Multnomah County,” said Sirois.
The group is holding a 50th anniversary celebration at the Art House in Eugene on Sept. 15. There will be a talk on preparing bees for the winter by a longtime member of the club, Dewey Karen.
Sirois has been working with interns from the University of Oregon’s cinema studies program to create content on beekeeping to try and make the hobby more accessible. They will be showing a short documentary made by the students at the event.
