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Greg will present on communication signals that various stages of brood use to regulate colony nutrition, the nurse bee to forager transition, and the role brood pheromones play in the seasonal transition to our longer lived winter bees.
Also, election of officers for 2025.
Mark’s note: I hope you are enjoying the most beautiful weather of the year but hope you will be able to come to the PA Library for our October meeting this Sunday at 12 noon.
We will have a special guest presentation. Carrie Morlang of Knox Cellars Mason Bees will present a lecture on the Orchard Mason Bee and the harvesting of cocoons to store over winter.
We will also have a short business meeting and will accept names for people who want to serve on the Board, particularly the President. If you are interested, please let me know.
Start preparing your bees for winter. Some of mine are taking sugar syrup, some are not. Also think about insulating to some extent, whether just some rigid foam on the top or a full wrap insulation blanket. We'll touch on this topic more at the November meeting.
ICYMI, part of Mark’s latest email:
We are kind of scheduled to meet at the Port Angeles Library this coming Sunday, August 11th. Unfortunately, the original reservation was lost when the reservation system changed earlier this year and another group snuck in and reserved the room at our usual 12:00 noon time. I have reserved the room from 11-12 so if you can arrive a little earlier, that would be great. We can then migrate out to the yard and finish up and/or take a field trip up to my place for a summer inspection of the hives at my place.
This will be the last meeting before the Clallam County Fair (Aug. 15-18th) and if you signed up to work, I will have your admission ticket at the meeting. I've attached the sign-up sheet as a reminder. If you find you are unable to work, please contact me. Also, we could use a few more people for the evening shift Th, Fri and Sat. If you can work but are unable to attend the meeting, please let me know so I can send you the ticket.
Looking forward, next month will offer our annual picnic and Marshall and BJ have generously offered to host. We will meet at 12 noon at 361 Lisel Lane in Port Angeles. Plan to bring a salad or dessert to share and the club will provide the main course and beverages.
The remainder of the meetings this year should be at the normal time (2nd Sunday, noon).
A message from Mark: Because of an unforeseen circumstance, our meeting of the 14th will not be possible and the Board has decided to move the July meeting forward to July 7th at 12 noon in the Port Angeles Library. I apologize for the late change, but we felt it would be better to move it forward instead of cancelling. The education session will concern Preparing Your Hives for the Winter. It seems too early but this is when you have to start getting things in order.
I hope your hives have recovered from the nectar dearth of the last month or so. It seems that they are finding plenty now so, fingers crossed, we may have a pretty good honey year.
Looking forward, we have the Lavender Festival at Victor's Lavender Farm on the 19-21 of July, then the Clallam County Fair Aug 15-19
I hope you can make the new date. Our August meeting will be held on Aug. 11 and the topic of discussion will be honey extraction.
The monthly NOPBA meeting next Sunday, June 9th at 12:00 noon in the Port Angeles Library. The listed topic of discussion is Varroa treatment but as that has taken up much of the last few meetings, we may touch on other topics of interest.
Mark adds this note of caution about caring for your bees right now:
“The bees have had a spell of bad weather to contend with and I would remind you that feeding is a good idea now. I have hives that are going through 1 quart in a matter of hours. I checked to see if they were just storing in away but the nectar stores are almost non-existent so I think they are just very hungry because of the nectar dearth and the poor flying weather. Robbing may also be a factor but none of my hives seem to have more stores than the others (visiting bees?).”
Also: Rex Robertson has invited the club to his bee yard for another visit. This will take place on Saturday, June 22nd at 12:00 noon. Location is 4923 Mt. Pleasant Road in PA. Rex always has interesting things to see, both in the hives and also in their beautiful gardens. Please plan to attend. He also included this link on Summer Brood Interruption that he spoke of in March: https://youtu.be/a4wCBHNLKL8?si=cc9HbbLcjNmTlL9n
Rex Roberton is planning to host a club visit to be held at his apiary on Mount Pleasant Road, Saturday, June 22. Stay tuned for details.
Mark and Greg have put off the field visit scheduled for today due to rainy weather again :( .
Here’s Mark’s note:
Hi all,
I'm sorry to disappoint, but after talking with Greg, we feel it would be best to wait until next week to hold the Field Day. It's pretty cold and wet for a bee rodeo and they would surely let us know it.
Next week, I will be unavailable but Marshall has generously offered to host at his place, 361 Lisel Lane in Port Angeles (up Deer Park Rd.) at noon next Saturday, May 11th.
Thank you for your understanding.
Mark
Mark sends this last-minute notice about an apiary visit this weekend (and moving the date of the May meeting):
“It's short notice but I would like to invite you all to a Field Day next Saturday, April, 27th. We will meet at my place (1018 Tamarack Lane, PA) at 11 am and go over some basic steps in a hive inspection, including demonstrating mite treatments and a mite wash. Then we will travel across the field to Greg's bee yard (5403 S. Mt. Angeles Rd.) to see what his hives have been up to.
“Greg is looking to downsize his apiary and would like to sell some (3-4) nucs. If you didn't get your bee order in, this will be a great opportunity to speak with him about getting some.
“As always, this is weather dependent so if things go bad, I'll send an update on Sat. morning.
“MAY MEETING: Since we generally hold our meetings on the second Sunday of the month, May is a problem with the Mother's Day conflict. This year we will push the May meeting back a week to May 19th. Please make a note and I'll try to send a reminder.”
From Mark:
”Topics of note will be the installation of your newly arrived packages, Spring mite treatments (sorry Greg), sign-up for the Lavender Festival, sign-up for mentoring and sign-up for the swarm list.
I hope your bees had a period of good weather to get them started. Now it's not so good so keep an eye on the food situation.
Hope to see you Sunday.
Mark
P.S. For those who do the Facebook, the WA State Beekeepers have an on-going series of speakers and one of the most recent is Dewey Caron speaking on winter hive death. If you've had issues with that, he gives some answers. Just search for WASBA in Facebook.
Joanne in Sequim is giving away some some bee gear because they're moving. She wrote:
"Is there anyone who would like to look at our equipment and take some or all of it? We have three brood boxes with covers, several supers, and lots of frames."
Anyone interested can email her at the2farmers@hotmail.com.
See Greg’s post under the Education tab for details on the Beginning Beekeeping course and a one-time class on swarm behavior and management.
If you’re not on the NOBPA Facebook page, you may have missed this helpful offer from Agnew resident Jerry Schmidt on Saturday:
I have quite a lot of extra 10 frame boxes and drawn comb, if anyone needs for next yr.
Text, 3604605733
J
After availing myself of his generosity, I can testify that indeed he has A LOT of spare hive boxes. And also A LOT of active hives.
— Rami
From Mark:
Just a quick reminder that we will meet this Sunday, August 13th at noon in the Port Angeles Library.
The Clallam County Fair begins just a few days later so I will have worker tickets for those who have signed up to help. We can still use people, especially on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon and evening shifts. Please let me know if that's something you can help out with.
Many thanks to Megan for coordinating our presence at the Lavender Festival. I had a great time and I think that is felt by the other volunteers. Thank you, also, to Marshall for donating honey.
We'll do it all again at the Fair so if you have honey or unextracted frames you would like to donate, please let me know.
Other topics for Sunday include extraction of honey and winter preparation.
It also looks like we will have the new club shirts available at the meeting. I believe the cost is $15.00 but don't hold me to that.
I hope the season is going well for you and your bees. Mine seem happier that they were last year.
From Mark: I'm writing to remind you that we will hold our June meeting this coming Sunday, June 11th at noon in the Carver room at the Port Angeles Library. Topics we will discuss include the upcoming Lavender Festival, care and feeding of your new bees and how to split a growing hive.
I hope all is well in your beehives. Mine are finally able to get some work done but I also lost all my squash plants to a late frost last night so maybe summer isn't quite here yet.
Update from Mark:
The weather isn't cooperating for Field Day so Greg and I have decided to push the date back to next week, Saturday May 13th at noon. We could probably have done inspections but the bees would be unhappy to see us and that makes it hard on all parties.
Since we are scheduled to meet the following day and since everyone has limits to how much time they can spend on bees, we will consider the Field Day to serve as the May meeting as well.
Bee Informed Partnership is excited to announce that on Monday, April 10th,
at 6:30pm ET / 3:30pm PDT, we will host guest speakers Dr. Marla Spivak
(University of Minnesota), Dr. David Tarpy (NC State University), and Dr.
Garett Slater (USDA-ARS) for a panel discussion centered around the joint
topics of queen breeding and genetic diversity.
As beekeepers, many of us wonder about our queens and how they influence our
beekeeping practices. Are they hygienic? Will they produce a lot of honey?
Are they Italian, Caucasian, Carniolan, etc., and what does that really
mean? How far down do their desirable traits get passed onto future
generations? The list can go on and on, and that's what we'd like your help
with!
If you could ask the experts a question about the impacts of queen breeding
and genetics in honey bees, what would it be? Please submit any questions
you may have to this Google Form
https://tinyurl.com/4yuzh6ae
by Monday, April 3rd! We'll do our best to ask your question during the
panel.
To attend this event, register in advance through Zoom.
https://tinyurl.com/bdd2ydmx
Questions about the event? Contact Rachel Kuipers @
rachel.kuipers@beeinformed.org <mailto:rachel.kuipers@beeinformed.org>
Mark writes:
As sometimes happens, our meeting date has conflicted with life. The scheduled April date is Easter Sunday so we will meet the following week on Sunday, April 16th at the same time and place.
The focus topic will be on installing your bees and caring for them in the important first months.
We'll also be finalizing the mentor/mentee list and answering any questions.
I think Sunny Farm is still taking orders (they were last Sat.) so it's not too late to replace those bees that didn't make it through the winter. Hopefully the last week has brought activity to hives that were quiet all winter.
A note from Greg Butler:
This is a reminder that next Saturday afternoon we’re having a short class focusing on swarming. The plan is for a general review of swarm behavior, have a discussion about preemptive measures you can take, and offer a couple of methods for brood management and a simple way to make splits and nucs. There are never any guarantees, but the goal is to help keep your bees out of the trees this summer.
When: Saturday March 25, 2:00 - 5:00 pm
Where: Carver Room at the Port Angeles Library.
The monthly NOPBA meeting is Sunday, March 12 at noon in the PA Library. That’s just hours after the change to daylight saving time (so your clocks might still show 11…) Mark Urnes will be unable to make it but Greg Butler will moderate and “present a lesson in honeybee anatomy,” says Mark.
Also:
- annual dues are still being accepted via the website or directly to our P.O. box
- mentors and mentees can let Mark know if they are interested in participating in that program
- the swarm list is open. To be included, you should be a paid-up member and agree to serve in some capacity during the year (work a shift at the fair or lavender festival, host a club visit, give a presentation)
- Jill at Sunny Farms just called and they have been provided with another 100 packages. Cost is $179.00 and delivery is 3rd or 4th Saturday in April.
Honey bee on poppy, Sequim, 8/2022
The regular monthly NOPBA meeting will be at noon at the PA main library, 2210 S Peabody St. Among other things, Mark and Greg will give some general introductory pointers on beekeeping for those just getting started. See you there.