I met Steve Taber in 1973, when he came to the University of Georgia Entomology Department and presented on instrumental insemination of queen honey bees and partly to visit his old friend and teacher, Murray Blum. He was a rising star in honey bee research at the time. One of those eccentric personalities often found in the apicultural field, with often controversial opinions. In his book, Breeding Super Bees, published by the A.I. Root Company in 1987, he states: “Breeding Super Bees, it’s a rather arrogent (sic) title for a book don’t you think?”
He and I continued to meet at various times since. We had a good chat in 1997, when I caught up with him in France, where he had lived for some time and just about to return to the U.S.
Here we are, Steve on the right, discussing French agricultural policy outside the house called “Goudous” that he lived in a the time. Steve was well known for his writings in many of the bee journals over the years, included in The Beekeepers Quartery as collected in Steve Taber on Beekeeping, published by Northern Bee Books.
