The Diablo Bee. January Speakers. Mann Lake was created in Mann Lake location because Jack and Mann Lake Ltd is a full service

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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 : M D B A L I B R A R Y J A N U A R Y 1, Packaged Bee Sale Boy Scout Merit Badge MDBA Name Tags Winter Bee Colonies Library Info Events Classiifieds Odds and Ends January Speakers Our guest speakers for the They will be focusing on January 13 th, 2011 meeting products necessary to establish a new beehive as will be Cheryl Boulay & Alex Silchuk of Mann Lake well as products for the Ltd. Cheryl and Alex represent the Woodland, CA experienced beekeeper. Mann Lake was created in Mann Lake location because Jack and Mann Lake Ltd is a full service bee supply store. find the quality Betty Thomas couldn t beekeep- ing supplies they needed for their own beekeeping hobby. They began selling supplies out of their garage on Mann Lake, but quickly found a lot of others who were underserved as well. They have expanded their business throughout the U.S to what we now know now as Mann Lake Ltd. Mysterious Red Bees found in New York (11-30) 09:44 PST New York (AP) -- A bunch of Brooklyn bees have been coming home looking flushed. New York City beekeeper Cerise (seh -REEZ') Mayo was puzzled when her bees started showing up with mysterious red coloring. Their honey also turned as red as cough syrup. She tells The New York Times a friend joked that the bees were imbibing the runoff at Dell's Maraschino Cherries Company, in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Mayo whose first name means "cherry" in French raises bees in that neighborhood and across the water on Governor's Island. Tests confirmed the bees were riddled with Red Dye No. 40 the same food coloring found in the cherry juice. Bee expert Andrew Cote tells thenewspaper that bees had been creating a big nuisance at the factory. The solution? Put up screens or provide a closer source of sweet nectar. The New York Times,

2 P A G E 2 Packaged Bee Sale 2011 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 honeybees. The bees are available for pick up the day of the workshop. Orders may be placed at the meetings, Jan 13 th, Feb 10 th, or March 10 th. Cash or check is due when the order is placed. Order Early - Orders placed in March may not be able to be filled. $55 for 3 pounds of bees or $45 for 2 pounds of bees. The queen is included but is not marked. NOTE: There will be no candy in the queen cages so do not remove the cork and thus release the queen until a few days after installing the package into the hive boxes. Look at the queen when you take the queen cage out of the package to check that she seems okay. Mary will have a few replacement queens Should I get 2# or 3#? There are about bees per pound. It is often recommended that novice beekeepers order a 3lb package. A larger colony can sustain the losses incurred by transition more easily. How do I hive bees? How do I place my new bees into a hive body On the MDBA website there are instructions on how to hive bees. For online information about how to install packaged bees into a hive box, you can look on Google videos or You Tube under installing package bees Here are a couple of helpful YouTube videos: - How to Install a Package of Honey Bees Beekeeping - Bee Package Installation

3 P A G E 3 Beekeeping Merit Badge Update A letter from our friends at Beesource: Dear Beesource Member, I am taking the unusual step of ing the members of Beesource forums because I need to ask for your help on an important project. BSA does not want to add activities to the merit badges unless it is sure that beekeepers will be there to teach the scouts. The beekeeping community needs to demonstrate that it will provide mentors to boys who want to learn about beekeeping. RIGHT NOW, there are three things that you can do to help. As you may be aware, Christopher Stowell, a Boy Scout and 14 year old beekeeper from Oklahoma, recently led a campaign to reinstate the Beekeeping Merit Badge. BSA recently announced its response to Christopher s request, and the news is mostly good. While BSA is not agreeing to reinstate the Beekeeping Merit Badge, it is agreeing to incorporate beekeeping activities into several different existing merit badges. Emphasis of the importance of bees and beekeeping will be added to or enhanced in eight existing merit badge pamphlets: Bird Study, Forestry, Gardening, Nature, Plant Science, Pulp and Paper, Environmental Science, and Insect Study. All of this will be accomplished by the end of One of those badges, Environmental Science, is needed for a scout to attain Eagle rank. Although the BSA is not reinstating a merit badge specific to beekeeping, it is making changes that provide opportunities to expose over 100,000 boys a year to the joys of beekeeping. BSA is considering adding beekeeping projects, such as working with a colony or harvesting honey, to one or more of those merit badges so that interested scouts can earn advancement recognition for their beekeeping activities. HOWEVER WE AS BEEKEEPERS NEED TO SUPPORT THIS EFFORT! First, BSA has invited all associations and experts in the beekeeping community who are interested in helping with this project to e- mail us at merit.badge@scouting.org. Please put "bees" in the subject line. Second, if you are interested in serving as a merit badge counselor, contact your BSA local council to initiate the process. localcouncillocator.aspx Finally, if you are willing to be a mentor, please contact BSA directly and let them know you are willing to be a mentor. BSA has requested that interested beekeepers them at: merit.badge@scouting.org and please put "Honey Bees" in the heading. Just write a few words letting them know that you are willing to act as a mentor, and please give BSA a way to contact you and let them know what states and counties you are willing to mentor in. If you have any ideas about this project, feel free to post them in the forum on Beesource that is dedicated to the Beekeeping Merit Badge Project ( forumdisplay.php?f=284). If you have contacted BSA, please leave a post on Beesource. Showing your support helps to draw attention to this project and helps to get other people to act. Thanks for your support, Barry Birkey Beesource.com

4 P A G E 4 If your name is on this list please pick up your name tag from Lois at the January meeting. MDBA NAME TAGS Mary Alexander Candy Jewett Michael Baefsky Ben Johnson Eric Benevent Alice E. Jordan John Berggren Michel Joulie Merl Berrgren Bob Kempton Mark Berzansky Norm Kirshen Barat Bisabri-Ershad Kelly Knapp Kimberly Brandt John Laos Drinda Brennan Jeanette Larsen Matt Brennan Dean Lassahn Dan Bridges Mike Lewis Thoms K. Butt Susan Livingston Stephen Butterfield Marc Lurie Lisa Christianson Patricia McMahon Eileen Crim Jens Maassen Bill Crim Violeta Maddox Will Cristes Sophie Marchant Antonio De Conceicao Mike Mascaro Sherry Derda Bonnie Monk Arnita Dobbins Ronald Monk David Elliot Robert Nace Lodema E. Epperson Niels Newstrup Mich Erausq;uin Roland C. Nunn John Erickson Ed O Brien Barbara Erickson Keith O Hara Richard Faulkner Don Osias David Freeberg Michael Pace The Gerke-inator Susan Peal Clark Gertner Alfonso Perez Charles Griffin Alan Peterson Christopher W Grow Snezhina Petrova Michael Guenley Matthew Protzen Roger Haman Eric Qualls Frank Hargrove Tom Reich Jeremiah Hargrove Adolph Renz Ray Hicks Audrey Renz Sally Hill Phillip Rice Greg Hong Delia Risbrough David Howard Cari L. Rogers John C. Humphrey (2) Jeffrey Sauve Jamie Humphrey Laurene M. Schatz Mark Janlois Christopher Schweickert Fred Jensen Pamela Seifert John Jewett Mike Selbert Brian Shigley Takashi Shirakura Greg Simonoff Jan Smiley Almeida Swanson Lorenzo Torres Jill Trindall Everett Turner Petal Turner Cameron Uhlir Patricia Valentine Lawrence Vanselow Linden VanWert Tom Vercoutere John Wagner Mary Waitz Jeanne Walker Carlton B. Webb Darrell Wells Ron Wichmann George Zakedis Reuben Ziegler

5 P A G E 5 Winter Increasingly an Uncertain Season in the Bee Colony By James E. Tew Bee Culture Magazine January 2011 Presently, it is cold and quiet in my beeyard. It's that time of the year. Yesterday, 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 threepound 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 Varroafor 25 years. Yet, here these mites are still killing my colonies all these years later. True, the early Vanoa 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 managed 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 content 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, 3 6 would it really matter in the short term? Already, 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 feed-ing. I have frequently recommended leaving the beehives undisturbed as much as possible and I still recom-mend 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.

6 P A G E 6 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 division-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 feeding - too small and too far!rom the wintering cluster, Open feeding In transitional weather is "iffy" and depends on the bees having good foraging conditions. Additionally, 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 3 6 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 prod-ucts 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 reasons 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 strul.il 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:

7 P A G 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 with this recommendation now. 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 I 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 ha.ve 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 described above, 90mething went wrong last Fall. If your colonies are small and possibly will have to be combined, 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 44691

8 M D B A L I B R A RY The MBDA hosts a library for it s members use. The entire library is available at each meeting. The borrowing process is completed at the meeting. Our library has been newly restocked and includes more than just books. Come and check out the new titles. Donations are welcome. In the past we have used the honor system in returning our library books. Do to the poor return rate using the honor system, a deposit of $40 will now be required to borrow most items. Checks can be made out to the MDBA. The deposit will be returned as long as the item is returned at the next meeting or within the following seven days. Details on borrowing will be available at the next meeting. Snack Coordinator Needed P A G E 8 Coming Events MDBA Events Other Events: Next Meeting: January 13, :30 Heather Farm. MDBA Spring Beekeeping Workshop, Saturday, April To submit events, us.

9 M D B A L I B R A R Y P A G E 9 Classifieds G&M Honey Full line of apiary supplies. Mann Lake Ltd s local re-seller Hive bodies, frames, queen excluders, hive tools, clothing, smokers, and more We buy used gear. Mike UNWANTED CAPPINGS? Do you have unwanted cappings? I will melt and clean them for the beeswax. Lois Kail, lkail@juno.com, (925) Need a spinner? Bee vac? The MDBA has one available for members to rent. For more info call: Lois (925) Missing Books We are still missing books from the MDBA library. Please return any books you may have borrowed. To add to the classified section please send an e- mail to mdbanews@gmail. com Found at the BBQ: Clear Lucite salad tongs (connected) and a white rigid spatula type thing, the kind that is shipped with blenders or food processors.

10 Mount Diablo Beekeepers Association 2010 Board Members President - Brian Wort First Vice President - Corey Wood Secretary - Lois Kail Treasurer - Jay Todesco VP, Community Education - Judy Casale VP, Member Education - Sylvia Goemmel 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. 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