BEELINE July 2015 Volume 29 Issue 4 Newsletter of the Southern Adirondack Beekeepers Association (SABA) www.adirondackbees.org Officers of the Board President: Chris Cripps, chris@betterbee.com, 518-290-3168 1st Vice President: Ian Munger, Beekeeper@bluelinehoney.com 2nd Vice President: Gregory Stoddard, gs@gregorystoddard.com Treasurer:Trish Manning, 831-9018 Secretary:Trisha Driscoll, 439-1102 Promotions Officer: Farial English, 518-882-7238 Webmaster : Bruce Raver, ADKbees@gmail.com Beeline Editor : Anne Frey, 258-7503, annef2525@gmail.com The County Coordinators: Albany - Stephen Wilson, 861-8020 Fulton - Dan Kerwood, 762-9364 Montgomery - Bruce Blender, 518-698-6700 Rensselaer - Tony Antonucci, 518-331-3095 Saratoga - Christopher O Connor, chrisoc@icloud.com Schenectady - Walt Wojtowicz, wwojtowicz43@gmail.com Schoharie - Leo Siemion Jr., 518-287-1408 Warren - Alicia Purzycki, aandbfarmer@gmail Washington - Tom Wells, thom12162@yahoo.com Notable Volunteer: President s Column I hope everyone is having a wonderful bee season. Reports that I hear say things are generally going very well with the bees building up nicely with a good early honey crop. SABA is an active club with a large membership. The spring seminar was well attended by beekeepers from all over. The membership meetings have been successful with some great talks on different areas of beekeeping. The open hive demos have also provided many with an opportunity to see how others do things in the bee yard. Many people have been able to find help with their bee problems by calling the swarm hotline and having beekeepers respond to them quickly. The SABA Google group has been active with many questions being answered. Many members have taken advantage of the fine library that SABA offers. You are reading this now, so you understand the benefit of the newsletters. Thank you to everyone that volunteers! The volunteers do a wonderful job to make SABA run smoothly, and SABA is looking for some more! Please help us out when you can. You do not need to have extensive beekeeping experience. All you need is a little enthusiasm for the bees! Our big project right now that we need help with is staffing the booths at Saratoga and by Chris Cripps Washington County Fairs. The public loves to hear about the bees and see the observation hives. Shifts are not that long, and as much as you teach and give while in the booth, you will get back many fold as you learn from the public, other beekeepers in the booth, and the passing beekeepers. Another spot we are looking for a volunteer to fill is the Seminar Coordinator. There are a lot of great people in the Seminar committee, but we need to have an organizer in chief. If you are able to organize people and lead them toward a common goal, please consider volunteering for the position. Anne Frey has been that organizer for many years and has a lot of information to pass on to someone that is willing to step up and volunteer. It is not a huge time commitment, as there are many great volunteers to help. I hope you are keeping up with the New Year Resolution we talked about earlier to keep your mites under control. This month s speaker is Dr. Jack Rath who will talk about these little troublemakers. I hope you also have had a chance to See one, Do one, Teach one at the open hive demos. Thanks to all of the people who have opened up their hives for others to see. Chris O Connor, Saratoga County Coordinator, delivered and picked up the projector and cookies for many SABA classes this winter
Calendar - Use This to Mark Yours! July 20, General membership meeting at Cornell Coop. Ext. (50 west High St., Ballston Spa). Actual meeting starts at 7:00 pm 7:00 pm 7:00 pm! 6:30pm: early mingling, library, ask-a beek, membership, snacks. July 21 26 Saratoga County Fair Visit the SABA booth in the Townley Building! Remember to work your shift. Aug 10-14 Eastern Apicultural Society (EAS) Short Course & Conference in Guelph, Ontario, CAN. Aug. 17 SABA Board meeting at Cornell Coop. Extension (50 West High St., Ballston Spa) All County Coordinators should attend! 7:00 pm Sept. 21 General membership meeting plus potluck dinner (Dinner at 6:30, meeting at 7:00; speaker will be Alphonse Avitabile), Saratoga County Cornell Coop. Ext., 50 West High St., B-Spa Oct. 19 SABA Board meeting 7:00 pm Nov. 16 General membership meeting 7:00 pm Notes from Gregory Stoddard, 1st V.P. Our speaker for the newly instated July meeting will be Jack Rath on the 20th. Jack is involved with the Northshire Beekeepers and the Vermont Beekeepers Association, and lives in West Pawlet, VT. He started with bees in the late '60s and has continued on a hobby basis ever since. Jack graduated from Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine in 1978 and practiced large animal (dairy and equine) care in the area until 2012. He has a special interest in queen rearing and bee breeding and became a partner at Betterbee in 2012 after retirement from vet work. The topic of Jack s presentation will be Varroa mites. He will talk about diagnosis and management of Varroa in honeybees and some new information on viruses and new treatment options. Please bring some kind of goody for the snack table! Food with honey in the recipe is especially nice. There will be time before and after the sit-down portion of the meeting (Sitdown part begins at 7:00; note the new time!) 6:30 to 7:00 is for mingling, nibbles and questions. 7:00 to 7:30 is the business part of the meeting. If you have an idea for a speaker or topic, please let me know. 2 Summer Nuc Management VOLUME 29, ISSUE 4 by Anne Frey A nuc (pronounced nuke since it s short for nucleus) is a small colony, which can become a full size colony or be kept as a resource in case of need. It has brood of all ages, a laying queen, and food stores in the form of honey and pollen in combs. A nuc is good to have as a source of a new queen for a large hive that needs to be requeened. After dequeening the hive with the failing queen, the nuc s frames can be transferred into a space made in the center of the brood nest. A nuc with a new vigorous queen may become crowded and swarm. What if you want to keep a nuc nuc-sized rather than have it get crowded and need to expand it? Maybe you don t want more colonies! Just remove a frame or two of brood from it, leaving the queen and adult workers in the nuc. Place the brood frames in a space made at the edge of the brood nest of another hive. Replace the nuc s stolen frames with drawn comb or frames with foundation. If foundation, place that frame between frames with brood in them. Keep on top of this. You may have to do it every 10 days. Another SABA Membership Benefit - Equipment To Borrow -by David Wood Hand Operated Honey Extractor Set-Up - Each set-up includes everything needed to uncap, extract, strain and bottle your honey except the bottles! - the club has 2 extractor set-ups available Contact: Anne Frey (Delanson) 895-8744 or Farial English (Galway) 882-7238 Please return within a week so others may take advantage of this important item! Child size bee jackets and gloves (sm, med., large) are available. Also one adult suit. Contact: Herb and Kathleen Backus (Greenfield) 893-2035 Projector - available for beekeeping talks only - works well with Powerpoint presentations - loan subject to Board approval Contact: President Chris Cripps, chris@betterbee.com
Fun at the Fair by David Wood The Saratoga County Fair is days away, beginning Tuesday, July 21 and running through Sunday, July 26. Our beekeeping booth always draws a lot of interest from fairgoers. The observation beehive is irresistible. Who does not want to find the queen? Many of us were introduced to beekeeping, in part, by a visit to the SABA booth at the fair. Every year the booth volunteers remark how they have a good time talking with the booth s visitors. It really is fun! If you would like to give it a try, it is not too late to sign up for a 4 hour shift. Please let me know if you are interested. I may be able to fit you in! Anyone got honey to sell? SABA s beekeeping booth at the Saratoga County Fair will display (and sell) your honey during fair week. SABA keeps a 15% commission. For simplicity, honey will be sold for $8 a pound. Your honey label should have the weight of the product, name and address, and the contents identified. No taxable items will be sold. Please contact David Wood ASAP to make the necessary arrangements. (woodmar@nycap.rr.com or 882-9759) Honey Bee Corner Clover is Blooming by Dick Johnson www.catskillbees.org Well, the dandelions have finished their heavy bloom and now there is another weed that the pure grass zealots try to eliminate from their pristine grass-only lawns. The beekeeper looks at these two flowers in a different way. The dandelions provided one of the first important nectar and pollen nutrients for spring start up in the honey bee hive. Now is the time that several types of clover are in bloom and it is the most important honey plant amounting to about 30% of the honey sold in the US. Considered by most consumers to be the premium grade table honey, clover honey is light in color and mild in flavor. Recent publicity that dark honey is more healthful has changed the opinion of many customers as there are now more requests for the dark honey. Clover hay is used as a forage crop in many areas and like alfalfa, it is rich in protein. The ideal soil condition is a sweet soil meaning alkaline rather than acid. Clover comes in all sizes and many colors-mainly white, pink, and red. The lowest growing includes the White Dutch type often used in lawns and the slightly taller alsike type that has a slight tint of pink. Honeybees make good use of both of these low clovers. The bright pink blossoms of the red clover are displayed a foot above the ground and you may see honey bees visiting them. Unfortunately for the honey bees their tongues are too short to reach the sweet nectar and so they cannot make honey from this plant. They can reach the pollen though! Some races of bees have longer tongues and may reach a little nectar. Also some honey bees cut a hole in the side of the blossom to reach the sweet stuff but they cannot make much honey from the red clover. Like the red clover, there is another native variety that grows 3 to 4 feet in height and is commonly seen in the poor soils along roadsides. This is called the sweet clover and both the yellow variety and the white are now in bloom. Both types continue to flower all summer long. In the Midwest, sweet clover is grown as a cultivated crop where it is considered as an important honey nectar crop. The blossom on sweet clover is different from the low growing types as the tiny flowers form a small spike several inches long held high above the plant instead of the spherical arrangement as in the low clovers. The tiny blooms open in sequence down the spike and thus the crop stays in bloom quite a while! Clover is a type of legume and all legumes have the ability to fix nitrogen, meaning that it enriches the soil wherever it grows. The growing of clover in your lawn gives your soil free nitrogen fertilizer and helps make your lawn greener. Growing clover also helps the honey bees to make a honey crop. Anyone who is interested in honey bees or needs help to remove a swarm should visit the website of the Catskill Mountain Beekeepers at www.catskillbees.org. 3
Queen Rearing Workshop At Betterbee by Jen Ford On June 13th and 14th, Betterbee hosted a queen rearing workshop led by Jack Rath. Ten beekeepers from as far away as Haiti gathered to get some hands-on experience raising queens. The mornings were dedicated to learning about the biology and different methods of queen rearing, with plenty of time to ask any questions we had. In the afternoon we headed out to the bee yard to help with setting up different types of starter and finisher colonies for queens. We helped to select frames of larvae, and brought them inside to practice grafting the larvae into queen cups. It took some practice, but eventually we were able to graft larvae and put them into the starter colonies. The next day we were able to look at the frames to see how the bees had started building the queen cells, and then we moved them to finishing nucs. As an added bonus, we were given a delicious lunch each day, and were able to learn about beekeeping in Haiti! We were also able to bring home two queen cells my queens are now happily laying eggs in the mating nucs we set up ahead of time. This was a wonderful workshop, and I can t wait to start raising my own queens this summer! A capped queen cell, on a plastic queen cup. Photos by Jen Ford These eggs were laid by a newly mated queen. Note that most are placed at the cell base. A week later she had herself under control. Photo by Ian Munger These young bees have begun to draw out the queen cells on most of the cups. VOLUME 29, ISSUE 4 4
Kids in the Bee Yard by Jen Ford Honeybees are in the news a lot these days, and it seems like everyone wants to know more about beekeeping. Recently, I was approached by an acquaintance about the possibility of bringing a friend and their children out to visit the bee yard. Photo by Jen Ford My husband and I are both teachers, and love the idea of sharing what we know about beekeeping with others. But it also takes some planning to ensure that everyone has an enjoyable visit. The goal is to educate people about honey bees, and to make sure they have a good experience. We wanted our visitors to leave our bee yard excited about bees and beekeeping. Because children were visiting, there were a few additional things we thought we should keep in mind. It is good to keep explanations and information short and simple, because if you talk too long, young minds will wander. Making it as hands-on as possible is also a good idea. If there is anything that the kids can help you with, let them! The first thing we decided we needed were veils for everyone. We have about 18 beehives in our yard, which means lots of bee traffic. Even thought it wasn t likely, we didn t want anyone to have a bad experience because of a sting. We were able to repair a few old veils, and borrow some bug shirts that have a built in screened hood. I also let our guests know ahead of time to wear long pants and long sleeved shirts. (continued on next page) SABA at the 2015 Washington County Fair - by Dan Jordan SABA will again have a booth in the County Bounty Building at the Washington County Fair. The Fair runs from Monday, August 24 through Sunday, August 30. The official opening of the Washington County Fair is on Monday August 24 at 5 pm. The schedule for the rest of the week is: Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to10 pm. Sunday August 30, 10 am to 9 pm. SABA will man the booth in 3 shifts; 10 am 2 pm, 2 pm 6 pm, and 6 pm 10 pm. WE NEED VOLUNTEERS FOR THE BOOTH. PLEASE CONSID- ER TAKING A SHIFT OR TWO. Those who sign up to staff SABA s booth will get a complimentary Day Pass to the Fair for the day of your shift. Feel free to bring a helper (they will also receive a complimentary Day Pass). Parking at the Washington County Fair is free. You may sell your own honey during your shift if you d like. Please use new, clean containers and proper labeling with contact information and weight. Anyone interested in taking a shift or shifts, please contact Dan Jordan (email: dmjordan5@gmail.com, phone: 290-0626 cell, 695-4808 home). Tom Wells and Gerry Krogmann at the booth. Photo by Dan Jordan
(KIDS, continued from page 5) The next step was to plan what activities, and which hives we would like to show our guests. The grouchy hive near the back? Probably not the best choice to introduce people to beekeeping with! We decided that we would do an inspection of a hive that we started this year. The hive is gentle, and short enough that children could look into it. It is also not directly in the flight path that most of the bees take when leaving the yard to fly out over the neighboring field. If anyone was nervous about walking into the bee yard itself they could still stand near the fence so we could show them some of the frames. We also decided to remove a super of honey from another hive so they could see how we actually process honey. We put an escape board under that super the day before the scheduled visit. The morning of the visit, we brought everything we needed out to the bee yard, so we wouldn t be making trips back and forth to the house. We also made sure to disconnect the electric fence around the yard! When our guests arrived, they were very excited to see the beehives. We took them out near the bee yard, and spent just a couple of minutes giving them some background information such as how long we had been beekeeping, how many hives we have, where we get our bees, etc. We then asked them who would like to go look inside the hive. All five children and one adult said they would like to. The other adults were happy to stand just outside the fence to take pictures. We helped everyone to get veils on, and explained that while honey bees are very gentle, and really don t want to sting you, the veils are just in case. Then it was time to light the smoker. Kids LOVE this part! We did the lighting, but let the kids take turns puffing it. While we were doing this, we explained why we use a smoker when going into a beehive. Before we went into the bee yard, we told everyone that they needed to know a little bit about bee etiquette. We explained that you never wave your arms or swat at the bees, because it makes them nervous. We also explained that it s okay to stand to the side or back of the beehive, but that you should never stand right in front of it that it s sort of like someone standing right in front of your door when you are trying to walk in or out. Not very polite! The kids seemed to really get it when we told them that in a bee yard, you should move like you are underwater slow and steady. We smoked the entrance of our gentle hive, and got everyone gathered around the back and sides of the hive. We took off the outer and inner covers, and had everyone look in the top. We pointed out how the gentle the bees are, and how they weren t even bothered by us opening them up. The top super was mostly full of honey, so they were able to see what that looked like. We also pointed out the drones and worker bees, including some that were bringing in pollen. The next box down was a brood chamber. We pulled some frames, and showed them the eggs, larvae, and capped brood. Everyone was very interested, and asked a lot of good questions about what they were seeing. We then closed up that hive, and moved on to the hive that we were removing honey from. Because we had previously placed an escape board under the super, there were almost no bees up top. We had the kids help by handing them frames of honey to place in an empty super after we had brushed any remaining bees off of them. When we were finished with the bee yard, we moved into the house to show them how we get the honey out of the frames. They got to see the uncapping plane, uncapping tank, and extractor. We knew it wouldn t be a visit to the bee yard without tasting some honey, so we made sure we had some honey sticks on hand for everyone. We thought that would be the least messy way for the kids to enjoy a sweet treat! From what we could see, the kids had a great time. They seemed interested, engaged, and asked many great questions. We got a nice thank you card from them a few days later. We really enjoyed having them visit, and would be happy to have visitors of all ages again!
When No Eggs Does Not Mean No Queen by Chris Cripps I have always liked to learn things. I think that is one of the neat things about being a beekeeper. There is always something to learn. One of the things that I have known all of the parts for, but had not put the practical application to work until just a few years ago is what I want to share with you today. We have talked about this in the intermediate class, but I think many people are like I was and have not put this all together yet. The queen takes about 16 days to go from freshly laid egg to emerging from her cell. She then has some growing up to do before she will start laying eggs herself. That seems like it would be common sense, but never really clicked with me. That growing up involves some time while her muscles and exoskeleton develop. This takes about 4 days. She then needs to figure out where she lives, so does some orientation flights. She may do this over a few days also. She then needs to go on the flights where she will find drones and be mated. She will mate with some to a lot of different drones and receive all of the sperm that she will have for the rest of her life. These flights will be spread over another several days. When she is done, she may not lay eggs right away either. Add all of that up, and it will be about two to three weeks after the queen emerges before she is laying eggs. If you look at the timing in swarming, the swarm usually leaves between the time they seal the queen cells and the time just before the virgin queens start to emerge. The old queen will not lay eggs for a little while prior to swarming when she goes on her diet to get slimmed down so she can fly. So, if you look in your hive on May 31 and find it has swarmed and there are chewed out queen cells, you still have 2 to 3 weeks before there will be a queen laying eggs in your hive. If you look again on June 10, you will find there is little capped brood left, and there are no eggs. For most people that sets off the bells of NO QUEEN, but if you rush out and buy a queen, you may be wasting your money as well as sending a queen to her death as she is killed by the replacement queen produced by the hive while she is on layover in between mating flights. Not wanting to waste money, but wanting to take good care of your bees, you ask what does all this mean I should do? First, if you have a swarm that you see or know about, write the date down in your beekeeping journal or on the calendar. Check that hive after 7 four weeks for signs of the queen. She may be laying earlier, but if 4 weeks have gone by and you do not have a queen, you should look at getting one. Second, keep a nuc in your apiary. At the very least, you will have a queen if needed. At the most, it will turn into a hive as it grows. Nucs can also be a method to ensure having replacement hives if you make them up to go through the winter. Lastly, understand the biology of the bee, the calendar and their connections to your patience level. Don t rush out looking for queens when you might be a few days shy of having the bees produce a laying queen on their own. Keep a dated journal of your beekeeping observations and manipulations. It will help you learn f rom your mistakes or remember what happened back in 15. Notes from Class by Amy Carman Honey bees were mentioned twice in an online class offered by the University of Copenhagen called Bacteria and Chronic Infection. The context was that of evolution of bacterial cells in biofilms. A biofilm is a coherent cluster of bacterial cells that are more tolerant and resistant to most antimicrobials and host defense mechanisms. Biofilms are what cause chronic infections, those that last a long time - in wounds, implants, and cystic fibrosis lungs. Standard antibiotic treatments - as used for acute, short term infections - are not effective on biofilm infections. Bacteria are highly adaptive to the highly varied conditions of the host organism, and changes imposed via treatments of antibiotics and antibacterial solutions. Bacterial cells within the biofilm may have slightly different genetic coding, which may promote altruism and cooperation. This means that the individual cell may produce public goods that help the whole biofilm to succeed, at expense to its own fitness. An example of public goods could be a chemical that helps all the bacteria to more efficiently process nutrients. In a biofilm, the cooperative cells keep in close proximity to each other, which helps to exclude bacterial cells called cheaters, which do not produce these costly public goods. The Darwinian model of evolution, Survival of the Fittest, does not take into account cooperation. Cooperation in evolution exists and is successful in obvious examples, for example honey bees [See, there they are] and ant colonies. Another example cited in this course is a bacteria that afflicts wax moths. This bacteria seems to operate in an altruistic manner. VOLUME 29, ISSUE 4
Volume 29, Issue 4, July 2015 Treasurer Trish Manning 442 Van Patten Rd. Duanesburg NY 12056 Wanted/For Sale FOR SALE : SABA T-Shirts $14 each. Proceeds from sales go to SABA s Wolf-Lounsbury Young Beekeeper Award fund. Color: light blue. Printed on 2 sides. Buy at picnic & meetings! Or contact Lori at 895-8744. Reminders Beeline Deadline for the September issue will be August 26. Please submit your articles, photos, announcements, etc. to the Editor via email at jsf@nycap.rr.com. Photos should be reduced in size before sending. FOR SALE : Completely portable honey processing work shop. Roadworthy, new marker lights, tail lights and wiring harness. Enclosed shelves on 2 sides, work bench, bench seat with hidden storage. Maxant nine frame motorized extractor, electric uncapping plane, uncapping tank, honey pails, hives etc. Over $3200 in inventory plus shop. Package deal, I don't want to split it up. $4500 Nancy AMAZON When you decide to shop online using Amazon.com, please go to SABA s website first and then click on the Amazon link. Your purchase on Amazon will earn SABA a little money! The SABA Google Discussion Forum may be joined by looking on the www.adirondackbees.org site and going to the Resources tab. Mite checks and treatment should not be missed! Unless you are breeding queens for resistance to Varroa mites, to not treat against mites is to neglect and abuse your bees. Mite-Away Quick Strips (MAQS) allow you to keep honey supers on. Apitsan, Apivar and Apiguard are treatments that require supers to be off the hive. Each choice costs only $4.50-$8 per hive. Keep your bees alive!