Nelson County Beekeepers
What’s The Buzz
Volume 6 Issue 5
Nelson County June 2020
June 2020
Happy beekeepers Make Happy Bees !!!!
Meeting for June 18th, 2020 will be an on-line meeting via “Zoom”
Officers President-Steve Hutchins Vice President-Darrell Hester Secretary-Carolyn Hurd
The meeting registration is required, and you will be sent a conformation to your e-mail. Please Register in advance for this meeting: https://uky.zoom.us/meeting/register/ tJwkfuyrqzwqHdz9p_Iw4jWRWYKElv4GM5f0
Treasurer & Editor-Susan Zhunga
Robbie Smith has asked asked Dr.’s Clare Hospitality-Monthly Volunteers Rittscof and Ric Bessin from UK to join the meeting for a short update and to answer any Newsletter Publisher– questions. Georganne Collins
Inside this issue: Note from the President 2
For Sale
3
Dadant Calendar
4
You can scan this QR Code with your smart phone to register for the meeting if you have a reader.
Robbie Smith County Extension Agent for Horticulture
Page 2 Note from the President ATTENTION – ATTENTION THE JULY MEETING WILL BE HELD ON JULY 2nd AT THE EXTENSION OFFICE AT THE REGULAR TIME OF 6:30 pm. Kent Williams will be our guest speaker. The August meeting will be on the regular date of August 20th, 2020.
NO MORE POT LUCK SUPPER The UK Extension Office will be suppling the meal. Servers will be appointed to serve the meal to you. Things will be a little different until further notice. But we will have meetings and a meal. Thank you all for your support. Steve Hutchinson President.
Page 3 ITEMS AVAILABLE FOR SALE Test kits for American Foul Brood (AFB) and European Foul Brood (EFB) are available for purchase from Extension Office for $14.00 each. Please call me (Susan 507-8789) for availability. Mike Johnson – Will make wooden ware to order. Boxes, frames and wax dipping. Contact Mike for information and pricing @ 502-249-2007. The Club - has NCB T - Shirts Prices are: $8.00 for children $10.00 for Adults and $12.00 for Adults 2x & 3x.
Gene Englert – Is making heavy duty screened bottom boards for $25.00. Call 502-409-0989 to order. ATTENTION ATTENTION There are 2 extractors complete with all that you need to extract honey. It comes with a refractometer to test you honey. $10.00 for usage, with a 3 day maximum. All members are encouraged to join us on Facebook. Ask questions, show your progress, and share your pictures. “Nelson County Beekeepers”. We would love to hear from you.
Page 4 Information from DADANT CALENDAR May By May, your mite treatments should be completed and removed from the hive before adding honey supers. You may also add queen excluders at this time, and supers can be placed on top of your brood box. Other tasks on the beekeeper’s calendar include installing package bees or Nucs and conducting your first hive inspection a week or so later. Make a habit of inspecting all established hives weekly. As the queen begins laying eggs at a greater rate, hives with a larger population may prepare for swarming. By keeping an eye out for queen cells, you may be able to tell if a swarm is in the making. Late May into J une is a gr eat time to catch a swarm of bees, too, so be sur e to have a hive r eady in case you have the opportunity. To understand the difference between a supersedure cell and a swarm cell, it is helpful to understand the terms and the function these cells serve in the hive. In its most general form, the term “cell” is used to describe any type of closed space created from wax by bees. Using this basic definition, a comb is simply a series of interconnected cells that are used to store honey and pollen and to protect developing brood.
Why Do Bees Make Queen Cells? However, when beekeepers talk about cells, they are typically referring to queen cells. As the name implies, queen cells are where larva develop and mature into new queens. They are typically around one inch long, have rough surface texture, and are shaped like a peanut shell. Colonies usually produce new queens for one of two distinct reasons.
In the first case, the existing queen is not producing enough brood to keep the colony viable. This can happen when the queen is aging or ill, has run out of genetic material needed to fertilize her eggs, or has died. To keep up the colony numbers, the bees produce a new queen to take over the responsibility of laying eggs. In the second case, the bees have determined that the colony is too large for their current hive. In this situation, a portion of the bees will prepare to leave the hive with the existing queen. Together, they search for a new location in a migration known as swarming.
June The month of June on the beekeeper’s calendar is a busy time for most colonies, so it’s important to continue your hive checks on a weekly basis. Identify the queen, check the overall health of the hive and add honey supers as needed. Let those amazing little creatures do what they do best! If you intend to pull honey from the hives this season, June is a good time to check on the necessary tools for extracting and containers for storing your honey harvest. The first step is to remove the beeswax that seals the honey in the cell; this beeswax is referred to as capping. The beekeeper can use a cappings scratcher to scrape open the honey cell or an electric uncapping tool to cut off a thin layer of beeswax to expose the honey. Our uncapping tools, from plain uncapping scratchers to electric uncapping knives, will get the job done for you quickly. The cappings are usually placed in a filter to allow the honey to drip from the cappings. The remaining beeswax capping is left to be melted and recycled into foundation or candles. Uncapping tanks and melters can separate the beeswax from the honey residue in the
beeswax capping. The uncapped frame is placed in an extractor to spin out the honey. Hand or electric powered honey extractors. Once the honey is extracted it is often filtered and put into a bucket with a gate. The honey should sit for a day or two in the bucket to settle. Then you are ready to bottle.
True Bee Story
https://www.funny-jokes.com/humor/stories/bee_stories.htm
Sniffer bees have been trained to detect bombs. Sounds improbable but it's true. Scientists have discovered that bees can be trained to detect scents far more quickly (and cheaply) than dogs. The bees are exposed to a particular smell and given a sugar reward. By repeating this process five or six times the bee always associates that smell with food so it sticks its proboscis (or tongue) out to receive it. Trained bees are placed inside a hand-held detector. When they recognise a particular scent, like explosives or cocaine, they stick out their tongues and this response is recorded by computer software so the human handler can identify the source instantly. The potential of bees is enormous. It may not be long before sniffer bees are a more familiar sight than sniffer dogs. DARPA, America's sci-fi Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, has a billion dollar a year budget and sponsors 'off-thewall' ideas like bee bomb detectors that could prove winners in the fight against terrorists.
Cheeky Bee Story
A man was driving down the road and ran out of gas. Just at that moment, a bee flew in his window. The bee said, "What seems to
be the problem?" "I'm out of gas," the man replied. The bee told the man to wait right there and flew away. Minutes later, the man watched as an entire swarm of bees flew to his car and into his gas tank. After a few minutes, the bees flew out. "Try it now," said one bee. The man turned the ignition key and the car started right up. "Wow!" the man exclaimed, "What did you put in my gas tank"? The bee answered:
How Not to Get Rid of a Bee Hive
Mr Joshua Mullen from Mobile, Alabama, USA is this month's candidate for 'Loser of the Month'. Finding that his shed had a nest of bees living in it you will find it hard to believe how he attempted to get rid of them. Mr Mullen soaked some towels in gasoline [petrol] and placed them carefully in the shed in order to remove the bees. However, the shed erupted in flames with a loud 'whoosh'. It appears that the fire started when the pilot light of a hotwater heater in the shed ignited fumes from the petrol. The picture to the right is not of the actual blaze in Mobile: The fire caused some $80,000 worth of damage but luckily nobody was hurt in the conflagration. We have heard that Mr Mullen told reporters, 'Looking at all this, there might have been a better way. It was a mistake. I wish I hadn't done it, but I did.' However, we can report that it did rid the shed of the bees!
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317 S Third St
Nelson County