Bees

[Beeherder]

 

why not find a bunch of bug lovers near you? This is what they do around here:


----- Original Message -----
From: MIKE BETH CONREY
Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 12:34 PM
Subject: NCBA September Update


All--
 
I have been receiving quite a few calls regarding the honey harvest and how hive production has been for the year.  Some of you are reporting extraordinary production and some of you are on the opposite end of the spectrum with dismal production.  All I can say is that it has been a weird spring followed by a weird summer and there does not seem to be any pattern for harvest.  Personally, I started out gang-busters and had to build more supers than I had on hand.  I have been at near zero production for the past few weeks but am coming back in on third cutting alfalfa.  I anticipate an above-average year.  I had predicted the harvest year of the century--and some of you are going to get it!  Congratulations if you are one of them!  
 
Harvest season is definitely upon us!  I am buried in yellow squash and tomatoes right now.  My friend Bette bestowed upon me several magnificent white eggplant yesterday.  They are so beautiful--I almost hate to eat them!  But eat them I shall and I am going to make one of our recipes from the honey party last year:  Grilled Eggplant with Manchego cheese, saffron honey and capers.  Yum! Yum!
 
Speaking of honey party....
 
NCBA Second Annual Honey Party
 
The second annual NCBA honey party will be held at Fairgrounds Park in south Loveland.  A map is attached.  It will be on Thursday, September 17th from 6-9 pm.  All food and beverages will be provided by NCBA.  This is a reservation required event and it is now time to RSVP.  So, hit the "reply" key and email me how many are in your party.  If you have kids that you are bringing--and they are more than welcome as there is plenty of activities for them there--let me know names and ages.  Reservations are due back NO LATER THAN SEPTEMBER 13th so that I can ensure adequate food for all!  You do not need to RSVP your regrets.  For those of you who came last year, you know what a fun time this is and for those of you who are new beekeepers this year--join the party!
 
This year, I will be doing a couple of new things.  First, we will be trying to make this a zero waste event so plan on bringing your own plates, silverware, napkins and glasses.  No need for chairs--there is plenty of seating.
 
Second, I will have a laptop setup and will be displaying the photos for the first annual NCBA Bee Photography contest.  Details below.  
 
Third, if you are a non-member and would like to attend, come on down (but RSVP)!  Please consider either joining the organization or contributing between $5 and $10 towards the party fare.
 
I am in need of one of those turkey fryers and probably 3 grills again.  Please email me if you can assist on this front.  I am also in need of volunteers to help prepare, setup and serve.  Please contact me and I will line you out.  If you have already signed up at the last meeting, I will be giving you a call or emailing you next week.  
 
Upcoming Meetings:
 
The October meeting will be held at the Loveland Public Library, Gertrude P. Scott room, from 7-9 pm on October 15th.  A map is attached.  We will have the Election of Officers.  Estel has indicated that he will not be Treasurer next year.  I will be happy to serve as President for one final year and I am looking for a President Pro-Temp to begin following in my footsteps to succeed me.  If you are interested in either position or would like more information, please let me know.  We will revisit our various committees and review our successes of the past year and take a look at our plans for the next year.  As always, committees are in need of additional members and we would love to have your help!  I am still looking for someone to provide refreshments and snacks for this meeting.  Please contact me.
 
November is Mead Month and I am working on our tasting and making events right now.
 
First Annual Honey Bee Photography Contest:
 
I am in receipt of some absolutely beautiful photos that you all have sent me throughout the year and I have been so impressed, that I have decided to hold a photography contest.  The contest will be open to all NCBA members.  There will be a professional and an amateur division.  The judging will be conducted by the attendees of the honey party on September 17th.  I will need a couple of kids--probably older than 10 to 12--to run the laptop, collect the ballots and tally the winners.  Please contact me if you have kids that can help.  Photo entries are due by September 13th.  Simply email me your photo and let me know which division you are in.  A maximum of 2 photos, please.  Prizes will be awarded at the Honey Party.  Prizes have been generously donated by NCBA member Tim Hardy of Hardy's Photo Imaging www.hardysphoto.com.  First prize in each division will be a 16 by 20 enlargement of the winning photo.  There will also be prizes for second and third place.  Depending on the volume of entries, we may need to have divisions set up for swarms; flowers; etc.  I will just have to play that by ear.
 
Volunteer Opportunities:  
 
The Sustainable Living Fair will be held on September 19th and 20th from 10-6 on Saturday and 10-5 on Sunday.  This is a big busy event for us and our last major volunteer event of the year so please consider helping.  Contact Volunteer Coordinator Extraordinaire Deedee Hosler at 970-568-3346 or dhosler@netzero.com.  She has several shifts available.
 
I just received an email from a teacher in Fort Collins requesting a 30 to 45 minute presentation for approximately 60 second graders at Olander Elementary.  She is fairly flexible on her dates (but not her times) and has the following available:  September 14-18th or September 22-25th from 1:45 to 2:30.  If you can assist with this talk, please contact Deedee Hosler at 970-568-3346 or dhosler@netzero.com.  Thank you.
 
Miscellaneous:
 
I have attached a current version of our membership list for your reference.  
 
The "Honey for Sale" page has been updated to reflect those of us who have product available.  If you are not on this list and would like to be, please email Jim Boyd at:  boydjrb@yahoo.com
 
Randy Waddle will, once again, be offering extracting services.  If you have honey that you would like extracted for you, contact him at: 970-737-2689 or rsw@skybeam.com   I can state from experience, that Randy is a phone kind of guy--not much for email.  People use a service of this nature for a host of reasons not the least of which are money, time and mess.
 
If you want to use the Club extractor, please contact Joe Mulholland at 970-593-2800 or joe-mulholland@hotmail.com.  He has volunteered (thank you very much!) to be the new coordinator.
 
Have a safe Labor Day weekend and I hope to see you on the 17th!
 
Beth Conrey
970-532-0329
coconrey4@msn.com

[Beeherder]

 

What i've been trying is not working so gonna try something else. I'll pick the Thursday nearest the 15th of each month at a local pub (family style pub) and post a flyer to invite folks interested in talking about Abbe Warre's approach to beekeeping to join me for a cool refreshing beverage.

just can't pull that train, have to find another way!

[Beeherder]

WANTED

Lyons area beekeepers and beekeeper wannabees

Happy Hour at Oskar Blues 

4 PM - 6 PM Thursday Oct. 15, 2009

Special Interest Groups may be formed to investigate:

http://www.mygarden.ws/beekeeping_for_all.pdf

from the website:

http://www.mygarden.ws/ModifiedAbbeWarreHive.htm

rsvp or just stop by Oskar Blues

reservations #

[Beeherder]

this is almost enough to get me to learn French, ... almost. But i just gotta figure out how to make these in affordable quantities even if its just one for me.

http://laruchewarre.topic-debate.com/vos-ruches-en-photo-f5/elevateur-pour-ruche-warre-gg-t48.htm

[Beeherder]

http://ruche-warre.levillage.org/Biruche.htm

this looks very promising, maybe a slightly larger mesh screen and a slot for inserting the sticky board under the screen when appropriate.

i really need a better comm box to carry around

[Ryder]

So how is it going in the bee world? Any late breaking Bee news. We have been taking daily small doses of pollen from a local bee keeper.

[Beeherder]

 
Hi Ryder,

Bee world is feasting away on the summer harvest just like us human beeings.

Local Area Bee cooperative efforts are showing tiny signs of sprouting something new but it's way too early to tell if it will survive much less thrive, there seems to be growing interest and people actually came to talk about bees last month. So here's hoping this growth can be nurtured into something interesting. I plan to expand the apiary with three new Warre' style hives next spring and want to make at least one if not all three from splitting my successful hives. Now that assumes they actually survive the winter and my fumbling attempts at beekeeping but its a plan anyway.

Harvest honey, buy pig from farmer, bake bread, trade half a pig, lots of honey and lots bread for part of a locally grown cow (that I actually met and knew personally).

Does the pollen help with alergies? or is there an additional health benefit?

Enjoy the sweetness and bee well.

[Mike]

This 'local, local, local; know your cow'.... sounds like the latest Gerald Celente:
http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2009/11/20_Gerald_Celente.html
It is an MP3.

If you don't like audios, the take-aways are:
*They are putting in a roof-garden.  The produce will be for him and his staff.  The extra he will give away.
*Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, & Morgan Chase are criminal 'white-shoe' gangs.
*Lawns will be converted from grass "which can't be eaten or smoked" to productive gardens.
*Pakistan should be front page news.  "Terrorist" attacks within Pakistan are tit for tat retaliations for Ameri-Pakistani operations in Pakistan.
*Unlike Iraq & Afghanistan, there are 200k Pakistanis in the US.  How would you feel if the US were responsible for deaths in your family?
*2010 Tit for Tat retaliations start showing up within the US.

Celente also says he tries to buy local and tries not to buy Chinese.  He has nothing against the Chinese people.  He is against the government-business alliance (fascist) business model.

[Beeherder]

 

You have basicly outlined the ONLY way to beat TPTB. Who needs them and their rot anyway. As soon as you realize that debt is the cause of our pain and the way TPTB control everything and you realize they have ALL the big guns and means to use them, well, then ... just walk away from all that superconsumer BS, and find a new way, a way without TPTB. No guns, no force, just walk away. When mothers no longer are willing to send their children to kill another mother's child in another land then it is over, won't matter who controls the money if we just find another way without the FRNs.

Ward Churchill was right about one thing, they will strike back if we mess with them enough, even though he most likely got it wrong for the event he flagged. Kill enough Paki's or enough anybody's anywhere and eventually you will reap the whirlwind you sow. They may just start doing to the US what has been done to them.

[Beeherder]

wow, no wonder that thread died, what a ranter eye can bee sometimes, whew, glad that's over.

So bet you thought beekeeper had it easy in the winter because the bees are all inside their hives just hanging out. Not so, as you read over in the hive report.

If you wanted to read about beekeeping on-line there are several sites mentioned in the thread started by DarwinsLair and there may even bee some professionals who read my drivel who will kindly offer me correction if a say anthing too outlandishly stooopid.

This year is the 200 th anniversary of the birth of the fellow given credit for discovering "bee space" and offering the moveable frame as a method of commercial honey production. Reverend L. L. Langstroth, a most worthy member of the Inventor's Hall of Fame:
 
http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/345.html

most of commercial beekeeping today is based on his work. I have three hives based on his design and now will bring on three hives based on the work of Emile Warre', His work is available on-line as a free english translation from the original French. A very interesting site offering info about this type of beekeeping is:

http://thebeespace.net/

[Beeherder]

 
Lets see if i can bring this topic up to date for the season.

Lots of information in the above posts about keeping bees on your "homestead" using more than one method. Local efforts here have resulted in a beekeeping club of sorts. Some cooperation and sharing and mutual support but by no means a Cooperative Agricultural Business. We do meet regularly and discuss seasonal beekeeping topics. imo this is a survival skill and a survival agricultural livestock, pretty much anywhere you want to garden you can keep bees and they will increase your gardening yields as well as add to the breadth of your personally produced food.

honey is the food of the gods and its available to those who will care for these small creatures. They will share with you but not willingly. Don't take my word for it read: The Honey Revolution, by Ron Fessenden MD, MPH and Mike McInnes, MRPS. After reading a third of this 2008 book its clear why so many beekeepers live longer healthier lives.

Enjoy that teaspoon or two of honey before bed to increase melatonin and healthy deep sleep. It works.

[opsec]

Beeherder,
   If you can make us a fast tutorial, like a "beekeeping for dummies" article, I'll pin it to the top of the forums. I think it would be helpful to know how to go from zero to having at least one functioning colony. A rough price estimate for materials would be helpful.

[wander]

Do you do honey or mason bees? My area might be to hot for mason bees (rarely falls below 32 degrees) but I see honey bees all the time.

[Beeherder]

 
my passion is the apis melifera or european honey.
So i don't know anything about mason bees except that they sound very useful as pollinators.
As soon as the rush is over  i'll post in the title about my apiary.
And I'll look for a tutorial you can link to also but somebody else has already done a better job than i can do. Maybe if other beekeepers know of good ones they can tell me and then I'll post them all. And since i just had my teaspoon of honey its time to go to bed, so won't bee posting about the apiary tonight though that's a large part of why i'm a bit busy of late.

bee well and enJOY

[Beeherder]

 
Please review this very short article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1273868/Cooking-herb-Thyme-stop-spread-MRSA.html

Now you might wonder why this is posted under the Bees thread. Well it is my experience that Thyme is bee health food. When i found that thyme-oil is the primary ingredient in non-pesticidal treatment of bees for the varroa mite i asked my favorite local greenhouse gardener and landscape designer for a recommendation and he sold me starts. That plant now surrounds all my gardens, mostly because the deer don't like it. I have never had a winter hive loss. When i tell other beekeepers this they just say how lucky i have been. Well what if luck favors the prepared? No significant varroa infestation in any of my hives, yes there are some but not enough to bother the bees. This plant is just one of my strategies to manage my gardens for integrated pest management for bees and everybody else. After all i'm a bug lover who lets his worms roam free. 

In particular the Big Blue Savory a relative of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_savory but with blue flowers instead of white.