Ed Southwick, who started Bee-L as a rapid communication tool mostly 
among researchers, attended the first American Bee Research Conference 
(1986), which itself was started by John Harbo and Joe Moffet (USDA, 
ARS) also as a way for bee researchers to report on their findings 
early, prior to formal publication.  Things were slower those days.  
Most presentations used slides in carrousels and projectors. When Ed 
Southwick was giving his talk (abstract at the linked pdf below), the 
remote malfunctioned.  Remotes for slide projectors had a thin cable 
connecting the speaker to the back of the projector to advance, 
reverse, or focus the projector.  John Harbo, as organizer of the 
conference, moved close to the projector to advance the slides from 
buttons on the projector.  When Ed Southwick saw the corrective action 
he remarked something close to this: "Oh, I see, this is going to work 
like this.  I push the button on the remote, which sends an electric 
signal that gives John a small electric shock.  And when he gets that 
he will know that it is time to advance to the next slide".

Ed had some background in engineering.  He was involved in various 
research projects measuring oxygen consumption of bees, different 
treatments, different group sizes, different temperatures.  It helped 
to have some of that background as the devices required measurements of 
air flow, concentrations of oxygen, and obviously a lot of gadgetry for 
the time.

Bee-L persists, evolved and survived some changes, but still here.  The 
American Bee Research Conference (ABRC) has continued its yearly 
meetings consistently.  For a decade or more at the beginning, it was 
its own entity, but then came under the umbrella of the American 
Association of Professional Apiculturists (AAPA).  Four of the students 
who gave presentations at the first ABRC later served in rotations as 
officers of the AAPA.  When the rotation involved be vicepresident, the 
person received the assignment of organizing that year's ABRC.

https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/60500500/PDFFiles/101-200/171--Proceedings%201986%20ABRC.pdf

 

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