Randy Oliver is the owner of Golden West Bees in northern California – about 1,000 colonies providing migratory pollination services for almonds and producing nucs and honey for sale. But he is much more widely known as the voice of ScientificBeekeeping.com website, which he started as a place where he could give beekeepers an objective, understandable look at new research coming out in the scientific journals.

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Randy grew up in a home that “abutted the rich wildlands surrounding the Upper Newport Bay in Southern California – an ideal place for a budding biologist.”  By the time he was in high school, Randy was also apprenticing after school to a sideline beekeeper who ran several hundred hives. He went on to college at the University of California Irvine, at first in marine biology, but then shifting to entomology. At that time, he was keeping a few hives as a hobby, but Randy was not yet seriously into bees. Instead, he was working nights, weekends, and during the Summer at restaurants and construction to pay his way through college.