7pm Workshop: Toni Sweetland “Importance of Pollinator Gardens in Sustaining Bees through Dearth”
Toni Sweetland is a certified, hobbyist beekeeper. In addition to keeping colonies at her home, she is a member of the Holly Springs Food Cupboard hive management team.
Toni has been an Extension Master Gardener of Wake County for 8 years, since her retirement from IBM. She thoroughly enjoys the intersect of bee and plant health and using bees as an excuse to plant more flowers. Much of her volunteer time with the Master Gardener program is spent in therapeutic horticulture and training of new members. She currently acts as Chair of the Extension Master Gardener Management Team. She is also currently pursuing Master Naturalist certification. As part of this program, she will be contributing to the Xerces Society bumblebee atlas, completing surveys at two sites in southeast Wake County during this year’s bumblebee season.
7:30pm Topic: Getting Younger Generations Into Beekeeping
Speaker: Brandon Dillman
Brandon Dillman is the Science Education Coordinator for Onslow County Schools in North Carolina, where he has been a passionate advocate for hands-on environmental education for over 18 years. In 2017, he founded the White Oak High School Apiary, making White Oak High School the first public school in North Carolina to raise honeybees on campus. Brandon secured multiple NC Heritage Go-Outside Grants (2023, 2024) to fund the construction of the White Oak Honeybee Education Center, a dedicated facility that enabled the creation of Apiculture and Anthecology, an honors science elective course where students develop authentic beekeeping skills while learning the science of bees and pollination. The course has expanded to serve the broader community, with high school students providing field trip programming to elementary schools across the district. Last year alone, the course certified 17 student beekeepers and welcomed over 450 third graders from 7 different schools, creating meaningful connections between young learners and the natural world.
To develop this program, Dillman has formed partnerships with the Onslow County Beekeepers Association and with extensive mentoring from Mr. Eric Talley, Brandon earned his North Carolina State Certificate of Beekeeping in 2018, ensuring he could provide quality instruction and mentorship to students. The apiary and education center has become a model for school-based beekeeping programs, featuring student-designed infrastructure including an engineering project that created a water storage system for the hives. Supported by multiple grants, including the NC State Student Beekeeping Grant in 2022, the program has been recognized through Brandon's numerous awards, including the 2022 EPA Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators and his selection as a 2025 Kenan Fellow for Teacher Leadership. The White Oak Honeybee Education Center continues to inspire students to become environmental stewards while gaining practical skills in apiculture, ecology, and scientific inquiry.
