July 2016
Nelson County Beekeepers nelsconcountybeekeepers@gmail.com
What’s The Buzz
Volume 2, Issue 7
Meeting Picnic @ Pat Swartz's House – Directions Below. July 21st @ 6:30 p. m. COOL FOODS - POT LUCK – Pulled Pork and Pulled Chicken with Rolls, Please Bring Sides and Desserts. Directions to Pat's house
Officers President-Doug Brink Vice President-David Donathan Secretary-Pat Swartz Treasurer & Editor-Susan Zhunga Hospitality-Debbie Ritchie
Robbie Smith County Extension Agent for Horticulture Inside this issue: Reminders from Dr. Tammy Horn Potter's BEELINE
2
Meeting Minutes
3
July Beekeeping Calendar
4
Standard Operating Procedures for Reporting a
6
Honey Recipes For Good Health
7
PLEASE BRING A CHAIR From Bardstown: turn right onto Pottershop Loop right after McDonald's, turn right onto Pottershop Rd. Go about 4 miles and right after you pass Bear Creek Way on left, you will see large stone mail box on left. That is our address, 4236 Pottershop Rd. Turn into the gravel drive, with red gate. From Springfield: turn left onto 605 at the little liqueur store in Botland. Go .2 miles and turn right onto Greer Lane, travel 2.2 miles and it deadends into Pottershop, turn left. Go .9 miles and as you pass Bear Creek Way on the left, you wi ll see our stone mailbox on left. Turn into gravel drive with red gate. SALE TABLE We will keep the “For Sale” table open each month for after the meetings. If you have something for sale Beekeeping related, clean it, bring it, price it, barter and/or sell at the end of the evening.
Page 2 Reminders from Dr. Tammy Horn Potter's BEELINE July 2016 By Ray Tucker Jr., KSBA President, “Fair, Fair Fair!” Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, by saying the word three times, magically all the tasks will be okay. July is harvest month for beekeepers, and this is a reminder that KSBA needs honey from many different apiaries to sell at the fair. KSBA also solicits 240 jars (approximately 8 ounces for each jar with your individual label) to provide to the two commodity breakfasts at the fair. Please donate a jar or two to KSBA for the breakfasts while you attend the Heartland Apiculture Society, and give them to Tammy Horn Potter or me. We will finalize our State Fair plans this year at the Summer KSBA meeting Saturday, July 16.
Register your farm with FSA to take part in USDA programs By Lindsey New USDA Farm Service Agency, Somerset Office. Many USDA programs offered by the Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, or
other USDA partners will require a Farm Serial Number during the course of your application. Registering for a farm serial number is easy to do; however, depending on the time of year and FSA’s procedural time-lines for processing farm reconstitution's (divisions or combinations of other farms or tracts) that might be needed to correct our records to the current ownership, we recommend that you don’t wait until the last minute if you need a farm number for program enrollment. For owned land, FSA needs proof of ownership (a deed, land contract, proof of inheritance, or tax bill) to update our farm records. Any parcel of land at least .01 acre can be established as a farm in our records system. For example, even a backyard where hives are located could be established with a Farm Serial Number. It is possible, however, that certain programs may have separate rules about the size of farms required for participation. If a beekeeper has hives located on land they don’t own, FSA adds the beekeeper to the existing farm records for that land as an “other producer.” Contact your local FSA office
for more information.
INSIDER INFO
FOR SALE The Club has NCB T-Shirts $11.00 Hooded Sweatshirts $23.00 Janet Brown is selling NCB Hats and Visors for $10.00. The club gets $2.00 from each sale. Larry Marks is selling the Marks' Frames for $12.00 for a set of three frames. Comes with instructions. Gene Englert is selling Hive Beetle Vacuum's made to order see Gene for pricing. Mike Vittitow is selling 2 Double Deep Hives with Bees for $225.00 each.
Susan Zhunga is selling Done Frames – New and Used. $3.00 new $2.00 used
DON’T FORGET TO JOIN US ON FACE BOOK!!
Page 3
Nelson County Beekeepers Minutes Nelson County Bee Club June 16, 2016
30 people in attendance with Abigail Holt and Anthony Bryant as guests for the evening. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Thanks to Sandy Coy, Dave Delaney and Doug Brink for manning the information tent during Garden Tour. Next month’s meeting is a picnic at Pat’s house, meat provided, theme is cool foods pot luck New membership list was passed out, asked for corrections and new one will be passed out next month. Officers: asked everyone to be thinking about this as the old officers are ready to let someone else take over. Open discussion: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
August meeting will be an interactive web-n-r with Larry Connors Doug will bring out to next meeting new business cards for the club Swarm line has been shut off, as we are well known now and are getting notified We are ok for participating in the State Fair What to do during honey flow, need for water, value of spacers for ventilation in hives
Pat Swartz Secretary
Financial Statment As Of 6/30/16 Start
$2799.21
Expense
706.85 Added food for cookout
Income
631.00 - Dues – T's & Hats
Balance
$2723.36
Treasurer Report Susan Zhunga
Page 4 July Beekeeping Calendar What’s Happening Inside The Hive? The bees are much less active. The honey flow often ends, and the beekeeper will notice that stings are more frequent! This is because the foragers have less to do, and consequently spend more time at home guarding the hive. Swarming is still possible, but much less likely. Bees are now searching for water to cool their hive, and will fly for miles to find it if necessary. They place small drops of water in the cells and use their wings to fan the air over the cells. Beekeeper Chores: Many beekeepers harvest the honey in July. Take the frames in which the honey cells are capped. If the weather has been rainy, the bees may not have been able to remove enough moisture to ripen it yet. In this case, many of the honey cells may still be uncapped. Leave the honey frames on the hives through a hot, dry period, and check again. Water availability can be a concern. If water (a stream, pond, or other clean water) is not within a half mile,
provide a source. This can be a slowly dripping faucet or large container of water with pieces of wood floating in it. Look for varroa, especially in your strongest hives. Hives with the most bees have the most drone brood, the favorite spot for these mites. Uncap at least a dozen capped drone cells, remove the pupae, and examine them carefully. If you have varroa in these cells, remove the honey harvest as soon as possible and treat with Oxalic Acid Vapor or your treatment of choice. If you do not find varroa, repeat this examination in the following weeks. Sticky boards placed on the bottom boards are more accurate indicators than drone brood checks. If over 15 mites per day are falling to the sticky boards, they are reaching dangerous levels. Hives can be successfully requeened in July and August. However, it is harder to find the old queen in a hive packed with bees in midsummer, compared with the much smaller hive population in April. It is a good idea to feed the bees to encourage
acceptance of the new queen, if requeening is done when the bees are not on a honey flow. Observations and Ideas: Scout the area near the hives to see where your bees are finding water. They may be a nuisance to neighbors if your bees have fallen into swimming pools. Some beekeepers plant crops in the spring to supplement their honey production in July and August. Buckwheat, vitex and sunflower are plants that can provide nectar in mid-summer. At KSU we have found that buckwheat is a relatively drought-resistant nectar source. Info from: KENTUCKY STATE UNIVESITY COOPERATIVE EXTENSION PROGRAM
UP COMING EVENTS Aug 18th meeting - A Question and Answer Session with Dr. Larry Connor. This will be done via an hour long interactive Webinar. Basically a big
Page 5 screen video phone conference call. He will answer all your question directly so please have your question written out on a card in advance. They will be collected at the door. Open to ALL beekeepers not just club members. Here is your chance to ask questions to a true expert in beekeeping. Dr. Connor is a noted author. Some of the books you my have already read are: Queen Rearing Essential, Increase Essential, Bee Sex Essential, etc. Dr. Connor is currently a regular contributor to Bee Culture and the American Bee Journal magazines. Non- Club members please RSVP the Extension Office (502-348-9204) Robbie Smith, so we have an idea of food preparation for our potluck dinner.
customarily stated in weight ‒ ounces and grams ‒ not volume.
Interesting Bee Fact
A one-pound jar label should read Net Wt. 1 lb. (454 g).
A two-pound jar should read Net Wt. 2 lb. (908 g). ‒
A one-pint jar should read Net Wt. 22 ounces (624 g) or Net Wt. 1.37 lb. (624 g).
A one-quart jar should read Net Wt. 44 ounces (1.2 kg) or Net Wt. 2.75 lb. (1.2 kg).
Name of manufacturer: This is your name or your company’s name, also required with your name is your complete address, including street address, city, state, and ZIP, and possibly your phone number.
Honey bees have 170 odorant receptors, compared with only 62 in fruit flies and 79 in mosquitoes. Their exceptional olfactory abilities include kin recognition signals, social communication within the hive, and odor recognition for finding food. Their sense of smell is so precise that it could differentiate hundreds of different floral varieties and tell whether a flower carried pollen or nectar from meters away. Source: http://www.benefits-ofhoney.com/honey-beefacts.html
Honey Bottling Labels If you intend to sell your honey you must use proper labeling.
What the label must include:
The identity of the product: HONEY
Net quantity: For honey this is
Nelson County Fair Don’t forget to enter you honey in the fair. Check in is Monday, July 18th from 9:00-11:00 at Samuels Hall. The fair will open at at 5:00 Monday, July 18 and run through Saturday. Come out and enjoy all the event and exhibits.
Page 6 Standard Operating Procedures for Reporting a Pesticide Kill to Division of Environmental Services As part of preparing a statement, the beekeeper should have the contact information of their neighbors and suspected sources of contamination, the types of plants in bloom in neighboring fields, where potential water sources may be, date of alleged chemical sprays, as well as any information that can help the inspector assess the situation. Being able to brief the KY Dept. of AGR inspector with this information expedites the process of recording a statement. Since inspectors may not be Do not take samples. The KY beekeepers, beekeepers should have an extra jacket, Dept. of AGR inspectors a smoker, and be willing to cannot accept samples of collect samples if the bees collected prior to their inspectors are either allergic investigation. or apprehensive about working a beehive. The investigator will take a statement from the beekeeper about the possible hive-contamination State Fair Update event. It would assist in the The schedule for the process if the beekeeper State Fair Honey Booth has supporting evidence will be finalized at the such as photographs of the KSBA meeting on impacted hive before the Saturday July 16th. I chemical spray, video was told that tentatively footage, pictures of actual Nelson County spraying, etc. These items Beekeepers will be are not mandatory, but working the same day highly recommended. as last year (Tuesday, If you suspect a hive has been impacted by pesticide applications, please adhere to the following standard operating procedures that KY Dept. of AGR maintains when collecting samples: First, after beginning a routine inspection, if you suspect that a hive has been impacted by chemicals, go no further and put the hive back together. Leave the area alone and immediately contact KY Dept. of AGR inspectors to arrange a meeting at the following numbers: 1.502.573.0282 or 1.866.289.0001.
August 23rd 2016 this year). Last year we split the day with Capital City Beekeepers but we may be able to have a whole day this year if we have enough interested members to work. Last year we had a great time talking about bees, selling honey, and enjoying fair food. It's not hard work and it's in the air conditioning. Entry tickets and parking are provided for us. You will also have some time to wander around the fair and see some exhibits. Please let me know if you are interested in working as i'm getting a list together and will contact people with the final arrangements when they are provided to me. Thanks Gene 502-409-0989
Page 7 Honey Recipes For Good Health Honey Recipe for Cough Honey and Lemon Juice with Glycerin 1. In a saucepan, boil an uncut lemon in water for 10 minutes. 2, Cut the lemon and squeeze the juice. 3. Mix in 2 tablespoons of honey and 2 tablespoons of glycerin. 4. Take 1 teaspoon of this mixture to relieve a cough and scratchy throat. 5. Refrigerate the leftovers for later use.
Honey Recipe for Sore Throat Add 2–3 teaspoons to a cup of hot water or herbal tea. Hot lemon with honey can also relieve pain. Combine the juice of half a lemon with hot water and add 2 teaspoons of honey. You can add a tablespoon of brandy or whisky, too. Honey Roasted Almonds via My Whole Food Life Need a quick gift or a
healthy snack in a pinch? These almonds are delicious and super-easy to make. Just mix honey into some raw almonds, sprinkle them with sea salt, and bake for about 25 minutes. Get creative with spices — something tells us these would be awesome with a sprinkling of cinnamon. They are perfect for that time of day that you need something sweet, but do not want to grab a candy bar. They also take only minutes to make. http:// mywholefoodlife.com/2013/01/01 /honey-roastedalmonds/
Fruit Dip You can make this honey dip easily in 5 minutes! Ingredients: • 3 cups plain yogurt • 1 cup chopped almonds • 1 tablespoon honey Direction: Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Chill it and serve with fresh cut-up assorted fruits such as strawberries, red and green apple slices, honey dew, and grapes. A delightful refreshing dessert choice for parties and gatherings.
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Nelson County 317 S Third Street Bardstown, KY 40004
University of Kentucky
Cooperative Extension Service
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