March 2017
Nelson County Beekeepers nelsconcountybeekeepers@gmail.com
What’s The Buzz
Volume 3, Issue 3
Meeting
May 18th @ 6:30 p. m. Program: Our speaker for May canceled last minute. Because of the all the good feedback from last month's round table discussion, we decided to have another. Since our last meeting there have been lots of questions Officers about swarms, as well as many other issue coming up this time of year. It should be very President-Gene Englert informative for our local area, and our new Vice President-Ricky Humphrey beekeepers. Secretary-Benny Hite Treasurer & Editor-Susan Zhunga Hospitality-Pat Swartz Newsletter Publisher– Georganne Collins
Robbie Smith County Extension Agent for Horticulture
ATTENTION MEMBERS - POT LUCK – BRING A DISH, A SIDE, OR A DESSERT TO SHARE. GUEST ARE ALWAYS WELCOME – Bring a beekeeping friend, or someone you think might like to get started. Lets spread the word.
Inside this issue: Upcoming Programs For 2017
2
Minutes & Financial Report
3
Brushy Mountain Bee Farm
4
Requeening & Spotting the Queen
5
KY Beekeepers Guide
6
Page 2 UPCOMING PROGAMS FOR 2017 Programs listed maybe subject to change according to guest schedules. May 18th ........................... SEE NOTE - Schedule speaker canceled June 15th .......................... Honey Extraction tips and demonstration as a panel discussion. Club members will Discuss July 20th ............................ Field Day? Drone Fishing? Natural Hive Count? August 17th ....................... The Beginning of the Beekeepers Season with Kevin Hale of Hale's Honey Farm September 21st ................ October 19th ..................... Tammy Horn Potter November 16th ................. Update from the Commissioner of Agriculture, Ryan Quarles (not yet firmly confirmed) December 21st ................. Christmas Party
Financial Statement As Of 5/1/17 Start Expense
$596.77 Supplies/Program/Pollinator Plot
Income
$712.00 Dues & T's & Hats
Balance
Susan Zhunga Treasurer
$2,429.96 Adjusted
$2,545.19
Page 3 Nelson County Beekeepers Meeting Minutes Meeting Notes April 20th Beekeeper's Meeting Gene Englert noted that we have honey extracting equipment available for all members to use. 81 nucs should be picked up Friday night from the Suttons and be back in Bardstown @ approximately 9:30 p.m. April 21, 2017. A big thanks went to those who picked up trash: Debbie Brown, Frank Culver, Benny & Marigene Hite, Steve Hutchins, Ricky Humphrey, Pat Swartz, Henry Wilkerson and Susan Zhunga. A special thanks to Ricky Humphrey for organizing the group. A question and answer session followed with Gene Englert as our local expert. Most members seemed to really enjoy this and there was much participation. Thanks to Gene for sharing his knowledge of beekeeping. Ricky Humphrey was the door prize winner. There were 37 in attendance. A big welcome to new members: Harley Blankenship, Marilyn Hutson, Tommy McElwain and Leroy Smuskiwicz Benny Joe Hite Secretary SWAP MEET – YARD SALE @ Every Meeting If any member has beekeeping items for sale, list them in the newsletter and/or bring them to the meeting. We can do some bartering after the regular meetings are over. Good time to save some money on necessary items. Be sure and bring items in good clean condition. Make sure they are priced and have your name. We will set up special tables for your items.
Page 4 INFO FROM BRUSHY MOUNTAIN BEE FARM - NEWSLETTER By now most of you getting started this year will have received your bees, whether it be from a package or a nuc. Now the fun begins, but don't think just because you have your bees installed your a beekeeper. Nope! Right now your a "beehaver". Yes, beekeeping is fun, relaxing, even meditative, but it is not simply putting bees in a box and expecting honey to flow out. We need to ensure those colonies are growing and thriving. The colonies need to be inspected regularly (every 2-3 weeks). This time of year you are looking at the brood pattern to make sure the queen is doing well. A good brood pattern is one where a cell is surrounded by cells of similar age. In other words, a cell with an egg is surrounded by cells with eggs or 1-2 day old larva. Plump larva are surrounded by other plump larva or capped brood. You don't want to see an egg here and there and brood randomly scattered about. As you assess the brood pattern, it is a good time to do a sugar shake to get a mite count. If it is a new
colony this will be informative and serve as a "baseline". Yes, bees are usually treated by the producer of nucs and packages but they will still have mites. At this point, the mite population should be below the treatment threshold but there are many variables that can affect the population, including mites from your neighbor's crashing colonies. Decide if the colony needs more space. My rule of thumb is if they are utilizing about 75% of the top story (top level) of the hive, then it is time to add another layer. This is true whether they are a package in just one box or an established colony that might be a few boxes tall already. Finally, beekeeping is a life long learning endeavor, which is one reason I enjoy it so much. It is like a puzzle. You have all these pieces of information and you need to assemble them to see the big picture. The more information you have, the easier it is to see the picture and understand the needs of the colony. To that point, attend association meetings, workshops, and conferences.
Janet Brown - is selling NCB Hats and Visors for $10.00. The club gets $2.00 from each sale. Janet and Leon Brown are also selling their beekeeping equipment. Boxes, Frames, Bottom Boards etc. Call for pricing @ 502252-7831. Susan Zhunga & Mary Ellen Marquess – are selling “Sue B Healthy” which is the Bee Ladies formula for Honey Bee Healthy $8.00 for an 8oz jar. Mike Johnson – Will be make wooden ware to order. Boxes, frames and wax dipping. Contact Mike for information and pricing @ 502-249-2007. Larry Marks - is selling the Marks' Frames for $12.00 for a set of three frames. Comes with instructions. The Club - has NCB T Shirts Prices are: $8.00 for children $10.00 for Adults and $12.00 for Adults 2x & 3x.
Page 5 Requeening & Spotting the Queen QUESTION: I’ve gone back to my hive and seen that my queen has been released (from packages) but what do I need to look for? Out of the thousands of bees that are in your hive, there is only one queen. Going on a hunt for her and trying to spot her is one of the hardest things a beekeeper can try to do. But if you don’t see her, how do you know if your hive is queen right? Eggs! ANSWER: The queen is the largest bee in the colony coming in at less than an inch in size. She has an elongated abdomen and a smoother
thorax. The queen is the most important member of the colony and is key to its survival. Yes a colony can survive without a queen for a while, but if it lacks the reproductive cycle, the hive will dwindle and die. A young healthy queen will lay 1,000 to 2,000 eggs per day. Without a productive queen, the colony will not build up in population. If you go into your hive and the population just isn’t what it should be or if you do not find eggs, there is a problem with your queen. If the queen dies, beekeepers have two options: let the colony requeen
themselves or purchase a queen and introduce her to the colony. There are some tremendous risks letting your colony requeen themselves. They will raise out more than one queen and the queens that are born will fight off the other (only one queen per colony) in which both could die. The virgin queen must go on a mating flight that should span a couple of days. If weather restricts the mating flight, she will not be fertile enough. Birds and other predators that enjoy feeding on insects are always a danger. It is best acquiring a queen from a reputable dealer and introducing her to the colony. ROYAL JELLY ISN'T WHAT MAKES A QUEEN BEE A QUEEN BEE FOR DECADES, SCIENTISTS thought an excess of something special, a substance called royal jelly, elevated a regular honey bee larva to a queen. New research suggests we had it backward: It’s what future queens
Page 6 KENTUCKY AGRICULTURE BEEKEEPER'S GUIDE The queen is the heart of the colony. She is usually the mother of all the other bees in the colony. Her abdomen is slightly cone-shaped and enlarges greatly when she is actively laying eggs. The workers are sterile females, numbering up to 60,000 per colony. They are true to their name -- tending the larvae, feeding the queen, cleaning the hive, grooming each other, constructing beeswax comb, guarding the hive, foraging for nectar and pollen, making honey, and keeping the hive warm or cool as needed. Drones are the hopelessly lazy male bees. They do nothing but eat and wait for nice afternoons when they will fly off in with hopes of meeting a young queen bee. A drone can be recognized by his enormous black eyes which cover most of the head. His thorax and
abdomen are stockier than those of a worker bee. Both his eyes and his powerful flight muscles are key to his success on a mating flight. Each bee starts as an egg, which is incubated in its hexagonal, wax cell for three days. It hatches to become a tiny, white, worm-shaped larva (larvae, plural). The larva eats food placed in its cell by the workers, and grows very rapidly for about six days. By the time the larva is fully grown it has filled its wax cell. The workers then cover the cell with wax. Soon the larva becomes a pupa (PYU-pah; pupae, PYU-pee, is the plural), which is the transitional stage between larva and adult. As the pupa matures, astonishing changes occur: wings, legs, eyes, antennae, hair and all the other adult bee
organs develop. At the end of the pupal stage, the bee chews an opening in the cell cap and crawls out. It is now an adult bee. The development periods for the three types of bee are shown below. These numbers are very useful for a beekeeper to memorize. With them we can make a lot of sense out of what we see in the hive. Info from: http://www.kyagr.com/statev et/documents/OSV_BEE_Bee keepingGuide.pdf
Blooming Bardstown Garden Tour June 10th 8:00a.m.
Page 7 aren't fed that matters. Royal jelly, which also is called “bee milk,” looks like white snot. More than half of it is water, the rest is a combination of proteins and sugars. Special glands in the heads of worker bees secrete the stuff, which gets fed to babies. A developing queen bee is fed royal jelly exclusively—not pollen and honey like her proletarian sisters. Some describe withholding royal jelly from worker bees as nutritional castration. These bees don’t get the special Food of the Gods. Or, perhaps, food of genetic monarchies. And so, we thought, their ovaries shrivel, and they don’t become a queen. It turns out, it’s the other way around. Not feeding an immature queen pollen and honey is what makes her royal, not her
exclusive access to royal jelly. Queens and Genes Radically different looking animals can be created from identical genetic material; a worker bee and a queen bee differ only in which genes are activated. Genes make proteins, which build the rest of our bodies. By manipulating the environment of their offspring, honey bees genetically alter their bodies via nutrition. We’ve known for a while that bees’ diet is involved in building different kinds
of bee bodies. Science is still figuring out just how that happens. Queen larvae are surrounded by royal jelly; they float on a sea of sugary bee gland snot in enlarged cells. Worker bees eat beebread (a type of fermented pollen) and honey. Nurse bees mash this into a “worker jelly” and add glandular secretions as a garnish. Workers don’t get the special stuff in queen jelly, and their ovaries shrivel. Info from https:// www.wired.com/2015/09/ royal-jelly-isnt-makesqueen-bee-queen-bee/
RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED
Bardstown KY 40004
317 S Third St
Nelson County
Bardstown, KY 40004-9393
1796 Roberts Rd
Stephen & Rosemary Greenwell