News
Recap of April 19 General Meeting
Spring meeting exceeds 80 in attendance
April 20, 2012
There was over 80 people in attendance at the April 19, 2012 SIBA meeting. Here, the guys are performing an OTS presentation, notching larva frames and making multiple individual nucs from the mother hive.
The April meeting was a heavy-hitting meeting with over 80 people in attendance. Some traveled over an hour. It's a good thing we had a great line-up of topics to deliver. The meeting started with an OTS demonstration in Garry's apiary outside. You can find out the details of this method on Mel Disselkoen's site. Notice the third topic down called "Queen Rearing Without Grafting and Miticide-Free," a presentation broken down in to 5 PDF's.
Moving inside, we discussed the timely details of what we need to be thinking about right now both inside our hives... and catching new bees via, cut-outs, swarm retrieval and trapping. By now, if you haven't made space in your hives, it's likely your bees could have already swarmed.
We viewed a cross-section of various drawn frames that one member pulled from his hives and described why they were pulled. Dark comb should be culled out over the season... and replaced first opportunity. Pollen frames that have a glossy sheen on their surface is probably pollen that the bees will not use. These frames can take up valuable space. Pollen should have a matte, or dull finish and suggests it's still useable by the bees.
We viewed a simple to construct swarmtrap and raffeled it off as a door prize. The bluepints for this trap will be sent and we'll post it on the website as soon as we have it.
The following announcements were made:
Gene Wilke (not far from our meeting location) is looking for a beekeeper to place hives on his property. If you are interested, please email him directly.
Richard Stewart at Carriage House Farm said as he expands, he is running into periods where he is out of honey for a month. He is thinking about supplying his customers with nothing but local honey. He would like to inform beekeepers in our group that he is offering to buy local honey for 3.00 a pound in buckets. He will be glad to provide buckets to pack the honey into. He's looking to purchase in July and October. Email Richard directly if you are interested.
Anyone interested in setting up beehives at Gladys Russell, County Farm or Rullman parks should contact Tim Conley at 513-263-0621. This is a nice opportunity to acquire an outyard as well as a different location to place hives.
We also unveiled the club bulletin board where we encourage members to bring in some snapshots and pin to the board so we can get a good picture of our group in action. Additionally, the board can be used whenever we need to set up a booth or information display here or there. We also plan to post the balance of the tip can, along with the active goal the club is trying to achieve so everyone knows where their contributions are heading. All contributions are used for the good of the club, and its members. As Jimmy Orem always says... "you have been freely given to, so consider giving something freely back." Remember everything at our meetings is provided by someone volunteering their time.
Again, with 80 people in attendance, and a plethora of topics, the meeting ran a little longer... but discussions were had and questions were answered. We hope you'll join us next month. We'll post the next topic soon but until then... bee happy, folks. Smell some flowers and enjoy the spring because the dog days of summer will be here before you know it.