Utah Beekeepers' Association

In our February 2026 conference, we heard from several speakers including:

• Matt Stayer: A queen breeder in Norther California with an unusual skill set to produce some of the consistently best queens in the industry. Matt is no stranger when it comes to bees. Matt has worked in bees for over 30 years. With both his parents working in the bee industry, he spent most of his childhood in the bee yards. At age 14, he started working in the bees for Jackie Park-Burris Queens. He worked for Jackie until his parents Bonnie and Pat Stayer bought Homer Parks Business in 1998. At that point Matt left Jackie and went to work for Stayer’s Quality Queens,

  Dr. Larry Connor: A renowned entomologist, author, and publisher who has dedicated his career to beekeeping. He is the author of several books on beekeeping. He served as the Extension Entomologist in Apiculture at The Ohio State University. He is a monthly contributor to American Bee Journal and Bee Culture Magazine. 
• Dr. Priya Chakrabarti Basu: Assistant Professor at the Department of Entomology, Washington State University. Priya studies the interactive impacts of multiple stressors on bees, for example poor nutrition, pesticides, abiotic stressors and diseases. She uses a wide array of multidisciplinary techniques across fields such as physiology, toxicology, functional biology, multiomics-based approaches and neuroethology to address her research questions. 
• Brian Stephenson: Commercial beekeeper and past president of the Utah Beekeepers' Association. Brian comes from a multi-generation family beekeeping operation in Delta, Utah. Brian will share a little about their history and practices that have helped them weather many changes that have come to beekeeping.

At our 2026 annual dinner, our Hive Tool award was presented to past Association president Brian Stephenson.

Happy Beekeeping, Logan Cleaver, President, Utah Beekeepers Association