Dennis Riggs was born and raised in SouthWest Florida.  He became interested in bees when he was about 11 or 12 years old when he was introduced to beekeeping by George Curtis of the Harold P. Curtis Honey Company in LaBelle, Florida.  Dennis is currently semi-retired and a small-scale "treatment free" beekeeper who maintains a both conventional and top-bar hives which were populated (and requeened) from his live bee removal, rescue, relocation efforts in SouthWest Florida.  He was the webmaster for the Florida State Beekeepers and is the webmaster for Beekeepers Association of Southwest Florida as well as many other beekeeping websites in Florida.  He was instrumental in the formation of the Beekeeping Association of Southwest Florida (BASF) and was their President (2010-11) and their Vice President (2008-09).  He has demonstrated conventional hive management in the club's apiary, as well as the very simplest of the Kenya Top Bar Hive (KTBH).  He has twice demonstrated and spoke on the KTBH for ECHO Agricultural Annual Conferences in Fort Myers, FL due to the simplicity and adaptability of the KTBH for countries not having power tools and resources common to us.  The simple KTBH demonstrated can be built with all square cuts, no bevel cuts, no diagonal cuts, and assembled using only a hammer and nails.  Dennis and his wife, Virginia (BASF Treasurer), have provided educational lectures and/or demonstrations on basic beekeeping for schools and summer/day camps, events, etc. in Florida and Georgia.