In the Texas Tea Stitchers I was nominated to be the Bee Keeper. Well, actually I was asked to be the Bee Coordinator but I thought that name was kinda boring, thus I became the Bee Keeper. My role is to keep track of our guild’s bees not to run them. As a Bee Keeper I am a kind of central repository or resource to find out about current bees. I will try to keep up with the folks who are in the guild bees. I hope they notify me when they start or end a bee. That sure would help.

As Bee Keeper I’m to keep track of the Queen or King Bees. Basically a Queen or King Bee is the ‘host’ of a bee. Some guilds call these people Momma or Poppa Bees. Generally, the Queen or Kins is the person generally in charge of the bee. Typically their responsibilities include:

1. compiling all participants and making a list of email addresses, blogs, flickr names & mailing addresses
2. setting up the schedule of months
3. deciding on the “rules” of the bee
4. facilitating communication between members (sending out emails, facebook posts, twitter tweets, phone calls, etc.)
5. answering any questions from bee members
6. organizing meet ups online or in person.

And if it is a monthly block echange type of bee or a round robin duties can also include:

1. helping keep track of who’s month it is, and if fabrics have been sent out, and recieved.
2. keeping track of blocks made/returned
3. deciding how to address conflicts within the bee (fabrics or blocks lost in the mail, members dropping out, tardy blocks)