DIRECTORS
Stephen Repasky, President & Apiary Director
Lynnetta Miller, Secretary
Kim Watson, Treasurer
Jaime Munoz, Director
Josh Kucharski, Director
Felix L. Yerace, Director
Nathan Mallory, Director
Susie DeBor, Director
Christy Diehl, Director
Gary Sekinger, Director, Web Guy
Stephen Repasky, Vice President & Apiary Director
Stephen Repasky is another second generation beekeeper who grew up on a small farm in Armstrong County and helped his father with his hives as a very young child. Twenty years later, he reignited that interest and now has 20 hives of his own in his back yard in Dormont as well as in other areas around the city! He joined BurghBees with the intent of looking for a place to put some city hives but instead got wrapped up in the energy, the mission and dreams of BurghBees and is now the Apiary Director. Steve keeps busy with everything from mentoring new beekeepers, maintaining the BurghBees Community Apiary, collecting swarms and extracting feral honeybee colonies from structures. He is a member of the Eastern Apicultural Society, Beaver Valley Beekeepers Association, PA State Beekeepers Association and is certified as a Master Beekeeper through the Eastern Apicultural Society. Steve is involved in raising local mite resistant queens. Stephen has a B.Sc. degree in Wildlife Management from Penn State and is employed as a wildlife biologist when he’s not playing with his bees.
You can reach Steve at SteveR@burghbees.com
Kim Watson, Treasurer
Kim, a recent transplant to Pittsburgh, is pursuing her interest in agriculture and food production and consumption through a Masters in Food Studies at Chatham University. Her area of concentration is sustainable agriculture. Kim holds a graduate assistant position at Chatham University where she is working towards developing a graduate curriculum in urban agriculture. Kim is also an intern at Churchview Farm, where she began as a volunteer. Kim is an assistant beekeeper at the farm and discovered her love of beekeeping as the farm’s three hives grew to seven. Prior to starting graduate school Kim spent more than ten years in the accounting/finance field. She holds a CPA license from the State of California.
You can reach Kim at KimW@burghbees.com
Lynnetta Miller, Secretary
Lynnetta became involved with Burgh Bees after attending the Beekeeping in the Classroom 101 Class in February 2010. She is excited about starting her first hive in the Spring of 2011 but is sure that it won’t be long before one hive grows into many. After moving to Pittsburgh 5 years ago, she felt a tug from her roots in rural Ohio and her grandparents farm in West Virginia calling her back to country living. But being a renter in the city of Pittsburgh hasn’t given her much opportunity. She has found that keeping bees is one way of giving city folks a taste of country life. Lynnetta has a degree in Commercial Art and is employed at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute as an Administrative Coordinator. Lynnetta is an artist and picture framer, and keeps herself busy with Stage 62, a community theatre group located in Carnegie, PA, both onstage and off.
You can reach Lynnetta at LynnettaM@burghbees.com
Jaime Munoz, Director
Jaime Muñoz started 2 hives in the Sping of 2010 after attending a BurghBees workshop but he claims he has been pretty much “bee-friendly from birth”. A life-long gardener he has welcomed the bees’ efforts on behalf of his blueberries, raspberries and in his vegetable and flower gardens. He is an active member of the Apiary Committee and Co-chairs the Garden Committee. His day job is teaching in Department of Occupational Therapy at Duquesne University.
You can reach Jamie at GardenGnome@burghbees.com
Josh Kucharski, Director
Josh Kucharski has a keen interest in the outdoors that was nurtured while growing up in rural West Virginia. He is a beginning beekeeper and happy to be a part of Burgh Bees and Pittsburgh’s green transformation. In his opinion, beekeeping is a great way for city dwellers to interact with their environment since bees are very in tune with nature’s rhythms. When not stirring up bee hives, he likes to travel, hike, and mountain bike. Josh studied biology and chemistry at West Virginia Wesleyan College, tree root ecology at Penn State, and is currently in his last year of dental school at the University of Pittsburgh.
You can reach Josh at JoshK@burghbees.com
Felix Yerace, Director
Felix L. Yerace grew up in Washington County and has always loved the outdoors. He is in his third year of active beekeeping, but has been interested in bees and their behavior for many years. Felix enjoys hunting and fishing (especially fly fishing) and is a member of the Carrick Sportsmen’s Club. He volunteers as a mentor with Family Tyes, which is a group organized to help families become involved in fly fishing. Felix recently retired from teaching but is still active working with students, and remains the Head Track & Field Coach at Keystone Oaks High School. Felix has a B.S. in Education and a M.Ed. in Educational Administration from California University of Pennsylvania.
You can reach Felix at felix@burghbees.com
Christy Diehl, Director
Growing up on dairy farm encouraged Christy to appreciate all avenues of agriculture. She moved to Pittsburgh in 1998 for a job. Living in the city didn’t hinder her passions for the outdoors. It actually opened up new possibilities for involvement. Concerned about honey bees, and the colony collapse disorders, brought her in touch with the club.
She became a beekeeper in 2011, and has been a member of Burgh Bees since 2009. Hoping to get more involved with people, and education of the honey bee is becoming more important to her. Gardening is a huge passion for her when the weather is right. Never knock on the front door if it is a nice day. She’ll be found in the back yard working in the garden or checking out the hives. Always up for discussing new ideas for planting, beekeeping, and everything in between.
You can reach Christy at ChristyD@burghbees.com
Susie DeBor, Director
Susie is new to beekeeping. After a Sunday afternoon Burgh Bees Bee Curious session at a local coffee shoppe she could not help herself from becoming a beekeeper.
She attended the Burgh Bees Beekeeping in the Classroom 101 class in January 2012. She now has a hive in the Burgh Bees community apiary in Homewood. She has given classroom presentations to elementary schools and she has exceeded the 20 hour membership volunteer requirement. She has also helped to organize the Fall MembershipBanquet. Currently, she is a member of the Pennsylvania State Beekeeping Association and the Beaver Valley Beekeeping Association. Past board experience includes the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Susie has managed her own hive of 23 years as Queen Bee of three children all of whom have swarmed off to college.
You can reach Susie at SusieD@burghbees.com
Nathan Mallory, Director
Nathan Mallory grew up in Titusville, PA being active in the Boy Scouts to achieve the rank of Eagle in 2000. After graduating High School, he joined the United States Air Force to finish 6 years on Active Duty. Wanting to be closer to home, he moved to Pittsburgh to take up residence in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, in Brookline. While in Brookline, Nathan opened a coffee shop, Cannon Coffee. While being an active member of the Brookline community, Nathan holds board positions as Vice President of the Brookline Chamber of Commerce, a director position within South Pittsburgh Development Corporation, co-founder of Project Coffeehouse, a non-profit which builds and operates coffee shops within emerging neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, and one of the newest elected Directors of Burgh Bees.
Why Burgh Bees? Nathan wants to assist in bringing another community apiary to Brookline. Nathan looks forward to working with a dedicated group of fellow beekeepers to ensure the education and awareness to the value of honey bees. “The best gift I could ask for, is when I give a jar of honey to a friend, and every time they add it to there tea or smear it on their toast, I hope they remember that this honey was from honey bees that live in Pittsburgh, and that just because you live in the city, doesn’t mean that you too can’t raise honeybees.”
You can reach Nate at NateM@burghbees.com
Gary Sekinger, Director
Gary has been keeping bees since 2009. In truth, he started out as a bee-haver because his interest was mainly in pollination for his fruit trees and grape vines. But in the second year he really became fascinated with the creatures and has become an obsessed bee-keeper with a growing number of hives. He is a tech-junkie and helps maintain the website and email systems for Burgh Bees.