January Speaker By Sylvia Goemmel

Transcription

1 The Diablo Bee M O U N T D I A B L O B E E K E E P E R S A S S O C I A T I O N I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E : J A N U A R Y 7, January Speaker By Sylvia Goemmel MDBA Elections Wintering 3-5 Dues 6 Bees in the 7 News Announcements & Cal- 8 endar Classifieds 9- Bee Q&A 10 I would like to Welcome Back our current members and Invite In new members to our 1 st monthly meeting on Thursday January 12 th This January scheduled topic will be an open Q & A to help new & existing attendees with questions you may have about your hive or questions you may have before beginning your hive. These Q & A sessions will benefit the new comers as well as needing our experienced beekeepers there to help answer your questions. Gary Lawrence will run the event, so please start thinking about your questions. This is my 3 rd season in this position to bring educational, interesting, and fun guest speakers into our meetings each month. I am interested in your suggestions as to what topics and people you are interested in having throughout the year. This can be a specific person or topic or general curiosity in other areas of our hobby. My goal is to keep it fresh, interesting and make all of you members go away asking for more! You can these ideas to sgoemmel@shoptii.com or call after 4:30 PM Top 10 things to do at the January meeting: 1. Pay your annual dues. (See page 6) 2. Introduce yourself to the new members of the board. (They only bite occasionally) 3. If you don t have a name tag please pick one up. (We re tired of hauling them around) 4. Sign up to bring snacks to a meeting this year. (No volunteers means no yummy snacks :-() 5. Check out the library. (It s full of great resources) 6. Feast on the yummy snacks and coffee our great snack coordinators provided. 7. Find a mentor. (Talk to Dan Goemmel) 8. Bee a mentor, share your experiences during Bee Chat. 9. Be patient. We are all volunteers and we are all still learning about bees and bee clubs. 10. Take a moment to remember why you love Bees.

2 P A G E 2 Winners of the 2012 MDBA Board Elections President: Brian Wort First Vice President: Dylan Wort Secretary: Lois Kail Treasurer: Stephanie Taube VP Community Education: Mike Stephanos VP Member: Education Sylvia Goemmel VP Membership: Jan Spieth VP Newsletter: Gabrielle Harrel Past President: Rick Kautch Lindsay Wildlife Museum Mike Stephanos and Gary Lawrence have been in consultation with staff at Lindsay Museum in Walnut Creek, and expect to install a three-frame demonstration hive there in early Mike has designed and built the hive, and will stock it with colony and marked queen, and also will be responsible for maintaining it initially. T H E D I A B L O B E E

3 P A G E 3 Wintering Bees by Dr. James E. Tew Presently, it is cold and quiet in my bee-yard. It's that time of the year. Yester-day, on a walk to my kindling pile, I ambled by the quiet wintering colonies that I keep in my home yard. Two of the three colonies looked terrible. I felt disgusted. These two colonies were three pound packages last spring. I gave them full deep frames of honey and they accepted the new queens. They built up strong and stored a honey crop. Now, here they were With signs of Varroa predation and signs of a skunk pawing at the entrance. There were scattered dead bees around the upper entrance. Overall, the colonies had a disheveled, desperate look about them and the worst of Winter is yet to come. I felt disgusted. In past articles, during presentations, and during interviews, I may very well have acquired a cranky reputation that I'm not sure I want. I feel that I am not cranky but I am frustrated. U.S. beekeepers have been dealing with Varroa for 25 years. Yet, here these mites are still killing my colonies all these years later. True, the early Varroa hysteria. has passed and modern beekeepers now accept these pests a normal way of beekeeping life. All those years ago, 1 was sure that after analytical people had a good, long chance to look at this Varroa thing, a commonly accepted protocol would evolve a general recommendation. Instead, current recommendations are all over the page: use resistant queen stock, treat with hard chemicals, treat with organic chemicals (soft chemicals) or don't treat at all. So far, no single procedure has worked in all colonies for all beekeepers all the time. That's a frustrating bit of news for me to accept. I speak for no one but myself. I have taken no surveys. I have no science. Even so, 1 have slowly and reluctantly grown to accept that my beehives will not soon look like the hives I man-aged 20 to 25 years ago. Generally, my present hives will have smaller populations, will not swarm as much, and will need much more assistance from me. My Winter survivors In years past, I hoped for strong colonies coming out of Winter. Now, I am con-tent With the colonies simply being alive as they come out of Winter. Live bees give me something with which to work while dead bees just give me more work. I don't know why the bees don't seem to like Winter as well as they did two decades ago. Even if I did know, would it really matter in the short term? Al-ready, 1 am trying to control Vanoa within my colonies. I can't really do anything about virus infections other than to know what they are. I've always known that Nosema infections should be treated, yet I rarely apply the medication. American foulbrood is still an occasional problem that 1 try to eliminate when I find it. So, I don't know why my bees don't Winter as well, but even if I did know the reason, 1 suspect my bees would still be wintering poorly. 1 can reduce this complicated scenario to the simple statement - "I just hope they are alive in the Spring. General Suggestion - feed heavily during late Winter/early Spring Supplemental feed - carbohydrates and protein. During the past couple of years, I have presented conflicting advice and opinions on supplemental feeding. I have frequently recommended leaving the beehives undisturbed as much as possible and I still recommend that procedure. If you are not there to help when weakened colonies come out of Winter, recovery will take much longer. In years past, there were two kinds of spring supplemental feeding procedures - stimulative feeding and survival feeding. Stimulative feeding involved giving the bees thin, watery sugar syrup to "stimulate- them to wake from their Winter dormancy so they could get on with the procedure of foraging. This no longer seems important to me and probably never was a very important management procedure. If you are going to feed your bees, feed them copious, thick syrup and feed it to them long-term. Feed them something on which they can survive. T H E D I A B L O B E E

4 P A G E 4 Wintering Bees cont Which type of feeder There are several designs of feeders. I have described them in previous articles. I feel a need to be blunt. Use hive top feeders. You can get more feed in place quicker with the least amount of disruption to the recovering colony. I have several hundred internal divi-sion-board feeders but I plan to leave them in storage. They require opening the colony, sloshing syrup around while I try to pour it into the narrow feeder. Entrance feeders are nearly useless for serious feed-ing - too small and too far!rom the winter-ing cluster, Open feeding In transitional weather is "iffy" and depends on the bees having good foraging conditions. Addition-ally, open feeding stimulates robbing and fighting amongst the bees. While this technique is labor-efficient, it is not particularly efficient for weak colonies. I say again, use hive top feeders. What carbohydrate to feed? If possible, feed traditional sugar syrup mixed from granulated sugar. I presently have several drums of com syrup that I will probably use later in the year, but during late Winter/early Spring, I want to go with something that I know works. Syrup made from clean granulated sugar works. Com syrup is probably fine as a Winter feed, but nagging questions keep arising about the use of com syrup as a bee feed. If you have your personal reasons for wanting to use com syrup, I don't object but feed something and feed plenty of it. Protein supplements Throughout the passing years, research interest has waxed and waned on the subject of pollen substitutes. Each time I comment about pollen substitutes, I get correspondence from those who manufacture it. I am in a position of information weakness here. While I have not objectively compared the various protein diets that are available, I have used all the common diets. During some years, some colonies take some of the diets. I assume it helps meet my colonies' nutritional needs. I don't know how much. That's not much of a recommendation. So why recommend these products at all? Assuming we agree that our bees are generally more challenged than they were a few decades ago and assuming we agree that the precise rea-sons for this decline are unknown, t want to eliminate as many variables as possible. I plan to feed pollen substitute in late Spring this year. General Suggestion - weak colonies In a publication I have written, I stated, In most cases, it is poor management to overwinter a struggling or weak colony because in most locations the weak colony would have time to increase to its peak population or the Spring nectar flow'''. Why my change? It used to be that weak colonies were the minority category. Now, for many of us, weakened colonies coming out of Winter are all too common. In early Spring, I would commonly combine weak colonies into stronger units, being hopeful that they would build up, and then I would divide them later in the Spring back into two units. I am not totally comfortable with that procedure now - especially for colonies that have a chance of surviving even if they are weak. Why? For two reasons: Intensive colony manipulation Combining colonies is a simple process on paper. In the beeyard it's disruptive and chaotic. Drifting bees may be lost. Occasionally, colonies being combined are trapped between newspaper-divided units and it's extra work for me. If I combine two weak units, I now have a colony that is not as weak as it was - but still weak. Counting my labor and counting the extra stress 1 put on the combining colonies, I say again, I am not totally comfortable T H E D I A B L O B E E

5 P A G E 5 Wintering Bees cont... Queen loss When I combine weak colonies, I lose queens. They were not good queens or the colony would not have been weak, but they are a living queen in late Winter /early Spring. This is a time of the year when replacement queens are difficult to get. My present attitude is that I would rather have a poor queen rather than no queen at all. I refer you to one of my opening comments above - -I simply want them to be Alive. Let me be clear. If the colonies are profoundly weak, combine them if you wish. If the weak colonies have a chance of making it to Spring, let it have a shot at it. A stronger colony is not made that much stronger by adding a weak colony to it. During this time, when U.S. colony numbers are declining, I am inclined to keep smaller colonies until they become really small before combining. General Suggestion - stores reallocation This really is not a change so much as it is just more important. True, supplemental feeding seems to be increasingly important, but nothing beats honey in the comb as food stuff for wintering beehives. Last spring (i wrote about it), I supered with many more deep supers than I would have in past seasons. Last November, I left more honey on the bees that I used to. In fact, most of my colonies are tall for wintering colonies. As has always been the norm, some of my colonies stored more honey than others. As Winter progressed, those that tended to be lightweight were given capped honey - in deep frames - from those colonies that had more stores than they could use. This was a significant change in my Winter management scheme. I intentionally reduced my overall extracted honey crop in order to have honey in deep frame reserves. I still have had colonies die with honey stores on the hive. I have moved some of that unused honey to colonies that seemed to be light. But, my point is that I held some honey to give back to them. I can't lie to you. It was hard to keep that extra honey from going under the uncapping knife. I'm glad I resisted. Traditional Winter management procedures The established wintering hive management scheme is not totally dysfunctional - far from it. In all my rants, I have never meant to suggest that all we have ever done in wintering hive management is now wrong. What I have been saying is that we should modify some of the ways we manage or bees in the light of our present bee colony shortage. For those of you needing to read a general discussion of traditional hive Winter management, look at nearly any current bee book. Several times, I have referred to management information in Backyard Beekeeping. Honestly The best current wintering recommendation is to send your colonies into Winter with a strong population of workers, headed by a young queen, having abundant food stores, and with a reduced pest population especially Viorra populations. That would be the perfect bee world. If you have to feed your colonies, as I de-scribed above, 90mething went wrong last Fall. If your colonies are small and possibly will have to be com-bined, something went wrong last season. If your colonies need extra frames of honey added during the Winter, something went wrong last year. Clearly our goal is to send our bees into Winter in strong shape. If that doesn't happen, we must do whatever we can to put on management Band Aids during the Winter. Do whatever it takes to keep your bees alive. Dr. James E. Tew. State Specialist, Beekeeping, The Ohio State University, Wooster, OH T H E D I A B L O B E E

6 P A G E 6 MDBA DUES - Jan Spieth, VP-Membership Annual Dues for Mt. Diablo Beekeepers Association are due and payable as of January Dues are still $15, the best bargain around! Membership includes admission to all meetings, subscription to the MDBA Newsletter, access to the Club s honey extracting equipment, and inclusion upon request on the MDBA website Swarm Volunteer List. Each new member is eligible for an MDBA name tag; additional family name tags or replacement name tags can be ordered along with a $12 fee per name tag. The best way to pay is to send your check for $15, payable to MDBA, to Treasurer Stephanie Taube, as follows: Stephanie Taube MDBA Treasurer 120 Bolla Avenue Alamo, CA You may also pay by check or cash at our January meeting on Thursday, January 12 th. Please arrive before the 7:30pm start so you may take care of payment prior to the beginning of the program. The MDBA Membership Roster is rebuilt each year. Continuing members must renew to remain on the roster. Inclusion on the Swarm List is based on current membership. Only members who have renewed and are in good standing will be listed on our website as Swarm List Volunteers for New this year: when your renewal (or new membership) has been processed, you ll receive an notice confirming your membership in MDBA for Questions? me at jpinkspieth@comcast.net or call T H E D I A B L O B E E

7 P A G E 7 Poison in Poisoned Florida Hives Identified From WESH TV, in Orlando, Florida, and Bee Culture magazine. Tuesday, Dec 13, 2011 A beekeeper s business was stung by someone who contaminated thousands of beehives and killed millions of bees near Micco in Brevard County, Florida last September. State and local law enforcement agents started an investigation Monday into the assault. In all, investigators said 2,300 beehives were directly or indirectly destroyed. "I just don't have any idea of why anybody would do that," beekeeper David Webb said. The boxes that hold the hives are now filled with wax moths and ants. Their honeycombs filled with tainted, worthless honey. It s been suggested that, due to the pesticide contamination, the honey and wax qualifies as a hazardous waste, and must be handled appropriately an expensive task. Rumors about price battles for pollination fees, out of state beekeepers, and overcrowding in honey production areas erupt most winters in Florida, and this year the stories are no different. But only occasionally does the situation become this lethal. Past episodes have led to hives being burned, killed with fuel oil, run over with trucks, and simply poisoned. Detectives said a specific insecticide, Bee Culture has learned it was Fipronil, was placed in the syrup tank from which the bees were fed. Then, bees from neighboring hives, in the process of robbing the originally killed hives, died from consuming the contaminated stored syrup. Webb figures his loss is about $750,000. SPRING WORKSHOP Each year the MDBA Hosts a workshop for it s members. This is a great opportunity for novice beekeepers to receive hands on instruction from experienced beekeepers. In preparation for this workshop Mary Andre generously helps MDBA members in ordering packaged Italian honey-bees. The bees are available for pick up the day of the work-shop. More information to follow. Zombie BEES by Gabrielle Harrel In the last week there has been much written and spoken about the so called Zombie Bees. This phenomenon has been identified and highly publicized by a research group from SFSU. A few years ago these same researchers from SFSU came and spoke to the MDBA about their findings. There has been no conclusive evidence that their findings are the cause of CCD. You can find the 9 page report of the research groups actual findings here. Mercury News article. USA Today article

8 P A G E 8 Coming Events MDBA Events Other Events: Next Meeting: To submit events, us. January 12, :30 Heather Farms. Christmas Honey He put on his coat And packed up his sleigh, He started to think of a house on his way. He chuckled and laughed And flew off in the night Up Over the Rockies to the Front Range below And a small little house that stood all aglow. No cookies or milk Were laid out for his plight But a big jar of honey; a Colorado delight! Now the jolly old man Slipped outback in the night And found the three beehives tucked out of sight. He threw up his hands And whispered a prayer That blessed all the bees And all those who care. Then he grabbed up his honey And flew out of sight Declaring Merry Christmas to all Beekeepers tonight. Gregg McMahan - The Bee Guru Got something to say? Do you have an idea for an article? Do you have an article you would like to share? Send an to: mdbanews@gmail.com

9 P A G E 9 Classifieds Smoker Fuel 5 large burlap bags for $5 (6# of burlap). Held Starbucks coffee beans, from plant in Seattle. Available at the meeting. qty desired to Terry Holcomb UNWANTED CAPPINGS? Do you have unwanted cappings? I will melt and clean them for the beeswax. Lois Kail, lois.kail@gmail.com (925) G&M Honey Full line of apiary supplies. Place your order in for the Spring Workshop Today! Hive bodies, frames, queen excluders, hive tools, clothing, smokers, and more We buy used gear. Mike Bee Sturdee Beehive Stands Black, metal beehive stands $80 Call Mike Vigo To add to the classified section please send an e- mail to mdbanews@gmail. com Need a spinner? The MDBA has some available for members to rent. $10 for the first day, $5 per day for the next 2 days and then $10 per day after that until re-turned. For more info call: Lois at (925) or Leo at Bee Suit Repairs? Call or Lois Kail At lois.kail@gmail.com (925)

10 Mount Diablo Beekeepers Association 2012 Board Members President - Brian Wort First Vice President - Dylan Wort Secretary - Lois Kail Treasurer - Stephanie Taube VP, Community Education - Judy Casale VP, Member Education - Mike Stephanos VP, Membership - Jan Spieth VP, Newsletter - Gabrielle Harrel Mt. Diablo Beekeepers Association (MDBA) is dedicated to educating communities about honeybees and the historic art of beekeeping. The MDBA is one of the largest bee associations in the United States with members from around the world. The MDBA meets at 7:30 PM on the second Thursday of every month, except November and December, at Heather Farm Garden Center in Walnut Creek, California. Each month, the MDBA presents a different speaker on a variety of topics and has an open forum for people to exchange ideas and helpful tips.