WELCOME TO OUR CLUB!
We are beekeepers and bee-lovers in the Washington County, Virginia area who meet monthly to educate ourselves and the public about how to nurture honeybees for the benefit of Earth and its inhabitants. Please join us.
We are beekeepers and bee-lovers in the Washington County, Virginia area who meet monthly to educate ourselves and the public about how to nurture honeybees for the benefit of Earth and its inhabitants. Please join us.
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All are welcome to our meeting on Monday, August 2, 2021 at 6:30 pm at the SW Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon to hear Emory & Henry student Julia Street share with us her research on Honeybee Genetics. |
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DON'T SELL ALL OF YOUR HONEY!
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NOTES from July 6 presentation on
FALL & WINTER MANAGEMENT of BEE COLONIES
by Extension Agent Phil Blevins
The goal of winter management is to prevent starvation -- either a lack of honey or due to air temperatures too cold to break cluster to reach food.
It is not advised to insulate the hives. Bees cluster at 57 degrees and can keep the temperature 93 degrees inside the cluster when it is 14 degrees outside the hive by contracting their wing muscles.
Good Management Practices for Overwintering:
1. Make sure you have a young, productive queen. (Replace her every year or two, preferably during a nectar flow.)
2. Make sure there is enough honey and pollen for the winter. Bees need 60 pounds of honey and about 4 frames of pollen. They need some empty comb on which to cluster. Add a frame of honey or pollen patty on a warmish winter day.
3. Make sure the bees are disease-free. Take a sample of bees to test for varroa mites NOW. If you need to treat, Apivar and MAQS are effective. Treat for Nosema with Fumagillin-B.
4. Provide the bees with protection from moisture, cold wind, bears and mice. Ventilate, remove empty supers and the queen excluder, if you use one. Add an entrance reducer.
Notes from our June meeting presentation on
HOW TO DO A HONEY SHOW by Karla Eisen of ApiSolutions Consortium:
IN GRATITUDE to her mentors, including Mike Palmer, who joined us by Zoom.
CLEANLINESS in handling raw materials. Keep supers covered and bound to protect the honey and to prevent bees from getting into the honey house.
WHY do a Honey Show: to market your product, to enjoy friendly competition, to encourage us to do our best, and to spread positive news about bees to the public. “You gotta be in it to win it.”
BEFORE ENTERING: Read the rules. Know the entry times. Know how many jars of liquid honey must be submitted. Ask for a judging sheet after the show or ask for judge’s comments.
Judges are looking for HONEY THAT SHINES.
* Sample show schedule should include entry time, exhibit classes, timeline, when judging begins, announcement of awards.
JUDGING CATEGORIES:
* HONEY CRITERIA: Clean? Free from crystals? Judges will use a polariscope to look for air bubbles, etc. Jar attractive? Free from foam? Overheated? Density? (Not above 18.6% water content; 16% is good.) Flavor is not a criterion in Virginia.
* CUT COMB CRITERIA: Fits in container? Uniform shape? Weight? Clean? Viscosity? Straight cut? Not watery? Let comb drain before boxing.
* CHUNK HONEY: becoming more popular. Judging is on honey AND comb. Know % of comb allowed in jar.
* DISPLAY FRAME: Not watery? No holes in comb?
* BEESWAX BLOCK (“cake” in UK): 2 lbs. Should be capping wax, not brood comb.
Color? (straw, canary yellow, lemon yellow) Clean, but don’t lose aroma. Uniform? No cracking or blemishes; cool in a low oven.)
JARS/CONTAINERS: Gamber brand is popular for honey. Square plastic case for cut comb. Cylindrical for chunk honey. Hold the jar from the top and bottom to prevent fingerprints.
HOW TO DO A HONEY SHOW by Karla Eisen of ApiSolutions Consortium:
IN GRATITUDE to her mentors, including Mike Palmer, who joined us by Zoom.
CLEANLINESS in handling raw materials. Keep supers covered and bound to protect the honey and to prevent bees from getting into the honey house.
WHY do a Honey Show: to market your product, to enjoy friendly competition, to encourage us to do our best, and to spread positive news about bees to the public. “You gotta be in it to win it.”
BEFORE ENTERING: Read the rules. Know the entry times. Know how many jars of liquid honey must be submitted. Ask for a judging sheet after the show or ask for judge’s comments.
Judges are looking for HONEY THAT SHINES.
* Sample show schedule should include entry time, exhibit classes, timeline, when judging begins, announcement of awards.
JUDGING CATEGORIES:
* HONEY CRITERIA: Clean? Free from crystals? Judges will use a polariscope to look for air bubbles, etc. Jar attractive? Free from foam? Overheated? Density? (Not above 18.6% water content; 16% is good.) Flavor is not a criterion in Virginia.
* CUT COMB CRITERIA: Fits in container? Uniform shape? Weight? Clean? Viscosity? Straight cut? Not watery? Let comb drain before boxing.
* CHUNK HONEY: becoming more popular. Judging is on honey AND comb. Know % of comb allowed in jar.
* DISPLAY FRAME: Not watery? No holes in comb?
* BEESWAX BLOCK (“cake” in UK): 2 lbs. Should be capping wax, not brood comb.
Color? (straw, canary yellow, lemon yellow) Clean, but don’t lose aroma. Uniform? No cracking or blemishes; cool in a low oven.)
JARS/CONTAINERS: Gamber brand is popular for honey. Square plastic case for cut comb. Cylindrical for chunk honey. Hold the jar from the top and bottom to prevent fingerprints.
THANKS to Jeremy Blackwell for welcoming us to his honey extracting and bottling workshop in Bethel on May 3.
Check out his website AbingdonBeeCompany.com or Abingdon Bee Company's Facebook page!
He can help you with extraction, bottling, labeling, and more -- at budget prices.
Check out his website AbingdonBeeCompany.com or Abingdon Bee Company's Facebook page!
He can help you with extraction, bottling, labeling, and more -- at budget prices.
THANKS to Dr. James Wilson, VT Extension Apiculturist, and Phil Blevins, VT Extension Agent, for a successful May 1 workshop on VARROA MITE MANAGEMENT & CONTROL. Thanks also to Tater Miller for providing his bee yard for our "hands-on" afternoon and to Mother Nature for providing the sunshine and cool breezes.
Resources you need to know about:
* Honeybee Health Coalition (honeybeehealthcoalition.org)
Search for Tools for Varroa Management -- and other helpful honeybee guides.
* VT Resources for Beekeeping (pubs.ext.vt.edu)
Choose from a dozen different guides.
* MiteCheck app - The Bee Informed Partnership (beeinformed.org)
Citizen science at its best.
Notes from the April 2021 meeting on SMALL HIVE BEETLES
presented by Dr. James Wilson, Extension Apiculturist by Zoom from VT
(Twenty members were present in person and about 17 by Zoom.)
Background: Small Hive Beetles (SHB's) originated in Africa and were discovered in the U.S. in 1998. Adult SHB's are attracted to the alarm pheromone of the honeybee. There are 2 female SHB's for every 1 male, and the females can lay up to 2000 eggs. Both the adults and larvae are destructive pests of honeybee colonies.
[There is a LARGE hive beetle, but not in the U.S.]
Honeybees can corral SHB's to control them, but are often duped by the SHB's to feed them while in confinement. The SHB relies on heat from the honeybee cluster to survive the winter. Small populations of honeybees cannot control SHB's as well as larger colonies. A large infestation of SHB's can lead a colony to abscond.
Damage: The larvae of the SHB tunnel through the comb, discoloring the honey with their feces and creating a citrus smell. The larvae are mobile in the moist yeast slime, and pupate in the bottom of the hive.
Monitoring: 1. Keep a healthy colony and place hives in a sunny location with dry soil. 2. Use a control trap like Beetle Blaster, Jail, Barn, or Bee Gone. Do not use homemade remedies that might poison the honeybees or cause the SHB's to become resistant to the chemical. 3. Use Diatomaceous Earth at the base of the hive to kill the larvae. 4. Other remedies: nematodes, soil drenches. Coumaphos (CheckMite) is not recommended because the SHB is developing resistance to it.
Q's and A's:
Thanks to Morgan Roth, PhD student at VT in Honey Bee Pest Management who contributed her research results.
And thanks to Blountville Bait Company, who donated three raffle prizes.
Background: Small Hive Beetles (SHB's) originated in Africa and were discovered in the U.S. in 1998. Adult SHB's are attracted to the alarm pheromone of the honeybee. There are 2 female SHB's for every 1 male, and the females can lay up to 2000 eggs. Both the adults and larvae are destructive pests of honeybee colonies.
[There is a LARGE hive beetle, but not in the U.S.]
Honeybees can corral SHB's to control them, but are often duped by the SHB's to feed them while in confinement. The SHB relies on heat from the honeybee cluster to survive the winter. Small populations of honeybees cannot control SHB's as well as larger colonies. A large infestation of SHB's can lead a colony to abscond.
Damage: The larvae of the SHB tunnel through the comb, discoloring the honey with their feces and creating a citrus smell. The larvae are mobile in the moist yeast slime, and pupate in the bottom of the hive.
Monitoring: 1. Keep a healthy colony and place hives in a sunny location with dry soil. 2. Use a control trap like Beetle Blaster, Jail, Barn, or Bee Gone. Do not use homemade remedies that might poison the honeybees or cause the SHB's to become resistant to the chemical. 3. Use Diatomaceous Earth at the base of the hive to kill the larvae. 4. Other remedies: nematodes, soil drenches. Coumaphos (CheckMite) is not recommended because the SHB is developing resistance to it.
Q's and A's:
- Screened bottom board? Yes, can help.
- Soil nematodes? More research coming.
- Attractants to bring SHB's into a bait trap? Yes, must be refreshed. Research continuing.
- Black plastic under hive? Yes, can help.
- Life cycle of SHB? Can overwinter and create more than one generation per year.
- Mating of SHB's? Males move faster than females.
- Do Africanized bees have SHB's? Africanized bees may have adaptations that limit SHB's, such as use of more propylis.
Thanks to Morgan Roth, PhD student at VT in Honey Bee Pest Management who contributed her research results.
And thanks to Blountville Bait Company, who donated three raffle prizes.
Virginia State Beekeepers Association
VSBA MEMBERSHIP
Treasurer:
Ian D. Henry
434-823-8600
5771 Hill Top St.
Crozet, VA 22932
treasurervsba@virginiabeekeepers.org
VSBA MEMBERSHIP
Treasurer:
Ian D. Henry
434-823-8600
5771 Hill Top St.
Crozet, VA 22932
treasurervsba@virginiabeekeepers.org
