Beekeeper’s Buzz Ohio Beekeepers Association: http://centralohiobeekeepers.org/ Coming this month…
Volume 1, Issue 4
COBA Board Mtg. 7:00 pm Monday, April 11, 2011, Rothenbuhler Bee Lab building, OSU Campus. All members are invited to attend.
Bee Yard News
COBA General Mtg. Franklin Park Conservatory, 1777 East Broad Street, Columbus, OH Wednesday, April 20, 2011 6:15 pm-Roundtable discussion 7:00 pm-Meeting with Speaker Virginia Webb, Honey Champ of the World Inside this issue:
Letter to the Editor 2 Beekeeping in the 2 South Beekeeping in the 3 South (continued) West Ohio COBA
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President’s Corner 4 (continued)
Contributed by John George
Spring is finally approaching and it’s time once again to plan for the activities and classes in our bee yard. Bill Tolliver and John George will be chairmen this year, along with the help of a number of last year’s group. Bill and John spoke to the 1st graduating class of bee school about our bee yard classes on March 1st and talked on March 12th and March 23rd to the other 2 classes. We understand that there are about 180 new beekeepers this year. WOW! What a great accomplishment. Thanks to Barry Conrad and his bee school committee. This year the new class will be building equipment (brood boxes and frames), on Wednesday, March 30th at 6:00 pm and again on Friday April 8th at 6:00 pm. at the bee yard. If we have time, we’ll also set up stands for the new hives. We will be installing bee packages on Saturday April 9th at 10:00 to 12:00 and on Sunday April 10th from 2:00 to 4:00. Our regular ―fun in the bee yard‖ classes will begin on Wednesday April 13. During that class we will be explaining safety equipment and how the bee yard classes will be conducted. There will be no bee yard meeting on April 20 due to our regular COBA meeting at Franklin Park Conservatory. We’ll begin classes back at the bee yard on April 27th. COBA will be supplying the hot dogs and drinks on March 30th and April 8th. Please remember to bring a lawn chair, and 3 ring binder and pencil. Anyone from last year or previous years is welcome to attend.
April 2011
President’s Corner Contributed by Dana Stahlman
We are experiencing typical Ohio weather as we enter April—warm and then cold and even some snow possible. I have a number of things to report to you. First, I would like to thank all those individuals who gave so much of their time to make our spring bee school so successful. Barry Conrad, chairman of this event, is to be commended for putting together a fine group of instructors and assistants. To our instructors and assistants, A BIG THANK YOU. All of us are volunteers, and as such, COBA awards us with bee dollars for our time and effort. The chairperson of events will be responsible for seeing that you get your reward – one bee dollar for each hour of service to COBA. A data base for volunteer time is also recorded and it is the responsibility of the chairperson of events to make sure that Bill Valentine Cooper and I are given this information so bee dollars can be awarded. At present, I have the bee dollars and expect chairpersons to request the number of bee dollars they need to issue. It is also possible for those of you with the paper bee dollars to exchange them for the new style of bee dollars. If you fall into this group, contact me for the exchange. Terry Eddy will be responsible for gathering the items to be sold at the bee dollar auction this fall. If you know of anyone – vendors or members – who would like to donate beekeeping items to the bee dollar auction, contact him. Terry will recognize all who donate to the Bee Dollar Auction on a page on our web site. I would encourage you to buy from those individuals and vendors who give to this worthwhile (continued on page 4)
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Beekeeper’s Buzz
Letter to the Editor To the editor:
regardless of where the bees got the nectar. He said he could sell all the honey he produced at My object in writing is to talk about the interesting topic $10.00 a pound – that his customers liked it beof the ethics of beekeeping. I had a great deal of cause it was lighter in color than anyone else was swarming last spring and was able to re-capture a selling and they were willing to pay a higher price number of them. I got back to my 10 hives without hav- for it. This lead to a heated discussion and he oring to buy package bees. Honey was not plentiful and I dered me off his property. had to feed my bees to bring them through the winter. The sugar I had to buy to feed them cost me more He then robbed his hive of all the food the bees had than the honey they produced. Since I am not a rich stored for winter. I noticed that he bought a packman, this causes problems – if I give up my bees and age of bees the next spring. Again, he had boxes buy honey – how good is the honey I purchase? I stacked high on this new hive. I noticed quite a bit know several bee keepers who sell honey, but I prefer of traffic going and coming from his home – some to produce my own honey since I know that it is a pure people carrying away bottles of honey. I just kept product and not contaminated by chemicals. I use my my mouth shut. honey mostly in my own house. On occasion I give some away to friends. There was a time when I could But by the third year, I noticed the bee hive being carted away by a new fellow. Guess he had had expect to have much surplus honey to sell, but no his fill of beekeeping and made a great contribution more. I feed my bees only to keep them alive, not to to beekeeping by selling out. I noticed later that he produce honey from sugar water.. got into the business of selling stock. He must I have a neighbor who has recently gone into beehave been quite a salesperson. I don’t know what keeping. Does anyone teach new beekeepers that the new owner was told but I guess it was somefeeding sugar water during the flow of honey puts what along the line he gave me. His hive produced sugar into the honey they sell? This neighbor didn’t over 200 pounds of honey at $10.00 a pound and last long in the bee business; he fed sugar all year returned a net profit of over $1500.00 in one year. long. He sold a lot of honey from the new hive he Here I am on social security and my bees produced started. I could not understand how his bees produced just enough honey for my table use. so much honey while mine produced very little, until he told me that he had a feeder on his bees all summer. I mentioned to him that he was diluting his honey with Sincerely, Hawley Prindle table sugar. He informed me that honey was honey
Beekeeping in the South Contributed by Dana Stahlman
Have you ever wondered about where the bees in your package com from, and the shock they face as you put them into your hives here in Ohio? I spent March 7 through March 21 in Georgia working bees. At one time, I had a business producing package bees and queens in both Ohio and Georgia and still have many good contacts in Georgia. Since I am involved with the project to raise queens for Jim Tew’s lab in Wooster, I used by friendship with some of those Georgia package producers to set up a bee yard near Pineview, in southeastern Georgia.
I kept an eye on the weather in Ohio while I was in Georgia. I saw cold, rain, snow, and then a period of relatively good weather. I returned home March 22 to rain and some nice warm days. But at the time I am writing this, winter has returned. This is typical weather for Ohio and the reason raising queens is impossible until late April or early May. Pity the poor bees I brought home with me on March 22. They arrived less than 24 hours after being taken from their hive in Georgia in very good shape. They were installed into hives on March 22. They had a few days of Georgia-like weather and then POW!— Ohio weather conditions. (continued on next page)
Volume 1, Issue 4
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Beekeeping in the South (continued from page 2) I am going to share some pictures I took in Georgia so you can see what bees are accustomed to when they are suddenly shaken from their hives into the packages that you receive. Typically the high temperatures in Georgia in March are in the 60’s and 70’s, with low temperatures corresponding to Ohio high temperatures. While I was there, we had a few days in the mid 80’s. The bee yard in Georgia will be brought back to Ohio on April 9. By that time, the bees will have a second spring to continue to develop and get an early start on raising queens in Ohio. This bee yard is currently located on the edge of a swamp and is in watermelon country. These packages of bees were drawing new foundation on my second inspection and the queens had started laying. They were bringing in pollen and nectar. By my third inspection, I was fully satisfied that all 31 hives had queens accepted, each had a strong population of bees. By the time I bring them to Ohio, the queens will have produced a lot of brood and the populations of these hives will have increased to the point that I can then begin to split them into the nuc’s we are using to raise over 1000 queens this summer. Ten of these hives are owned by Nina Bagley who will also be the first of our ―order of the Queens‖ to raise queens in Ohio for sale on a large scale. I would encourage anyone wanting to produce Queens for sale in Ohio to take a look at this model. COBA will also be raising queens for sale this coming summer. But the early queens produced by this
project—queen mothers and drone mothers are all Ohio overwintered stock—will be available by early May. More information will be supplied on queen purchases in the May newsletter. I would encourage you to consider buying northern raised queens. The queens that come in your packages for the most part are not as a whole surviving our Ohio winters. A survey taken in Western Ohio has shown some very important results with respect to Ohio-raised queens vs. southern imported queens. If you attended the special West COBA meeting in Springfield with Dr. Larry Connors, you had a chance to talk to beekeepers and others who firmly are convinced that a paradigm shift is taking place. Ohio beekeepers are going to need to rethink some beekeeping management practices which would include replacing southern raised queens with Ohio raised queens well before the fall beekeeping season. I hope that this explains the connection between the Georgia hives I started and the important task of raising Ohio queens.
Beekeepers start work early in the morning and work often until late in the day.
The abundance of food is just unbelievable..
Typical commercial bee yards in Georgia.
Bees and brood – lots of it.
COBA Officers President Dana Stahlman stahlmanapiaries@aol.com Vice President Terry Eddy facilitymanagementsupport@ hotmail.com Secretary Gail Walter gailwalter@columbus.rr.com Treasurer Barry Conrad barry@hiveandhoney.com One-Year Trustees Pat Chamberlain jimpat28@sbcglobal.net Mike Hatter mike.hatter@yahoo.com Joy Voorhees voorhees3@ameritech.net Two-Year Trustees Nina Bagley ninabagley@me.com John George jkgeorge1@roadrunner.com Dan Wampler poppawamp@hotmail.com
Tentative Date for our Pancake Breakfast: Saturday, May 14th
West Ohio COBA News contributed by John George
On March 24th West COBA sponsored a meeting that was held at Clark State Community College in Springfield Ohio. Dwight Wells, the President of W-COBA spoke about overwintering hives. Out of 79 hives that were over-wintered by several club members, more than 70 survived. Larry Lavey, one of the members, over wintered 21 hives with a 100% survival rate. Larry uses Russian stock. All of the hives had in common the same process of feeding in the fall and plenty of stores for winter. Most also provided insulated intercovers and wind breaks. It was also noted that 5 of the hives that died were new packages from the south. The consensus appears to be that re-queening with Ohio raised queens along with proper nutrition and over-wintering goes a long way toward winter survival. Dr. Larry Connor, the author of several books,and a nationally known speaker, talked in detail about how to determine the over wintering food stores needed. Larry is a great speaker and if anyone gets the chance, they should try to attend one of his lectures. Several vendors were present to sell equipment. There were many door prizes awarded at the end of the program and everyone had a great time. W-COBA is a new club in Ohio and was started last June. Their meetings are held the 2nd Thursday of the month at the Troy Hayner Culture Center in Troy Ohio, and the 4th Thursday of the month at Cedar Bog just south of Urbana and north of Springfield. Along with their regular meetings, Dwight has several larger meetings planed and has Dr. Jim Tew and Kim Flottum lined up as speakers. For more information, visit the W-COBA Web site.
Don’t miss speaker Virginia Webb, Honey Champ of the World, at our April 20 Member’s meeting. Virginia earned the Gold Medal for her honey at the International Federation of Beekeeper’s Associations in France, September 2009.
President’s Corner continued from page 1 event. The earlier an item is donated, the longer the person giving the item will be recognized on the web site. To all members—you can start collecting bee dollars in the following ways: Attend club meetings: One bee dollar for each meeting attended. This includes activities in the bee yard. Since the Fun in the Bee Yard meetings on a weekly basis, it is an opportunity to get a lot of bee dollars by being involved in this activity.
Donate Items to the Bee Dollar Auction: One bee dollar for each item donated. Donate time for events: One dollar for each hour of your time, working at the State Fair booth, or any other public event sponsored by COBA, or volunteer work such as cleaning up the bee yard, giving bee talks, and representingCOBA to non-beekeeping groups. Serve on a COBA committee: You can earn a bee dollar for each COBA committee meeting you attend.
Bring a new member into COBA: For each new member you bring into COBA, you get one bee dollar. As President of COBA, I would like to welcome all the new students who have completed the bee school classes with COBA. It is remarkable that beekeeping is going through a period of such growth. This is not only true of COBA, but for all beekeeping organizations. God bless each and every one of you.