The Rushford Meadery and Winery turned out to be a great place to meet. Fred brought a delicious bread along with cheese spreads that went really well together, and Shane and Laurel provided coffee, cheese, crackers and samples of their meads and wines to everyone interested in sampling. Very nice.
We also held a meeting and everyone got to see the extractor and club bees. This being our first year with the extractor we're going to learn as we go, and Pam will coordinate all extraction activities with Shane (FDA Rule: Shane cannot produce his product and have honey extraction going on simultaneously (so coordination is a must)). We're thinking that group extractions are probably the way to go so that cleanup can be a shared activity, but that might not work out for everyone. Anyone that wants, or needs, to extract individually will be responsible for cleanup afterward. Shane, being very generous, is only looking to us to cover the costs of electricity and hot water, and he feels $10.00 per extraction party is sufficient. (And he doesn't even want that if some of his product is purchased.) Pam will be setting up a calendar that will be on the blog showing extraction dates as they are requested and available. To set a date, contact Pam at: [email protected] Three days prior to the meeting, I put sticky boards in the club hives to see what the mite drop would be. (This was 1 week after the FormicPro treatments had ended.) After 72 hours, the sticky boards had a lot of very small mites, which were the baby mites that were under the cappings at the time of treatment. As the bees emerge from the cells, the cells are cleaned and the dead mites drop through the screened bottom boards. Because it takes 3 weeks to go through a brood cycle, we will not be able to get an accurate count of living mites in the colonies until about the second week in July. The FormicPro apparently did its job! (I have attached the current information on mite treatment levels.) We inspected both hives and replaced (5) frames with wax foundation frames (deeps) donated by Fred. The hives are improved because of this, but there are still several plastic frames in the hives that I will try to get around to replacing on my next inspection. Both colonies are queenright and have about a medium population for this time of year, and they will hopefully increase the broodnest area with the new frames. The hives were placed where Shane originally wanted them, but they are in shade all day. Pretty sweet when it's 90+ degrees under a blazing sun, but not the best location for the other 51 weeks of the year. Fred asked Shane if they could be moved to the southeast corner of the woods, and Shane is fine with that. Fred, Pam and I will come with a plan to relocate them. Denise brought our legal Wisconsin Agricultural Tourism Liability Law sign to the meeting, and Shane already has it up. It is now to government specifications, which is boringly black and white, and D must have had to look the other way while printing it. Sorry D, the forest green was awesome! It was mentioned at the meeting that Fumagilin-B is no longer being manufactured, and all suppliers I checked with are out of the product. Fumagilin-B has long been used to combat Nosema, primarily Nosema apis. The only scientifically proven product on the market that I'm aware of to combat Nosema is Hive Alive, and that was developed primarily to combat Nosema cerenae, which is much more prevalent than Nosema apis. (Some researchers go so far as to claim that every honey bee colony in the world has it!) I had been in contact with the manufacturers of Hive Alive, Advance Scientific, and they are restocking US distributors with fresh supplies (2 year shelf life, unopened). Brushy Mountain Bee Farm and Mann Lake are distributors, but there may be others. We talked a bit about a relatively recent discovery of honey bees gathering substances from mushrooms, and Mary mentioned that she has a hard copy of some of the information that she will make copies of and bring to our July 21 meeting. We will also discuss how we want to present the ECWBA at future Events, with the Green Lake County Fair being the next scheduled Event. Laurie is our Events Coordinator, and it's part of her responsibility to ensure that booths are set up according to both Event holders and ECWBA member expectations. Up until Walleye Weekend we had a strictly educational presence. There was a club decision made to offer tee shirts, hats, etc., with the ECWBA logo as a means to raise funds. But there were also bee jewelry, key chains, honey stix, and other non-ECWBA articles for sale in the Walleye Weekend booth. This was a surprise to most as it had not been discussed with the membership prior to the Event. The membership must now discuss, and come to an agreement by majority vote, as to whether to continue with non-ECWBA items or not. I'm hoping that we have more member participation at the Green Lake County Fair. It would be nice to have 3 - 5 members present at all times, instead of just 1 and sometimes 2. I believe one of the Walleye Weekend time slots had no coverage. The dates are listed below, so check your calendars and make your plans early. July 7 is Field Day at D's apiary, N7928 County Road WH, Fond du Lac, WI, 54937.....Rain or Shine. A State Apiary Inspector (Dan) will be there to perform a hive inspection, and he usually demonstrates how to do a sugar shake or alcohol roll for mite counts. Demo time is 10:00. D has invited everyone to show up early and stroll the grounds, but do bring water, chairs if you want a place to sit, and any snacks you may want. Protective gear is a must if you want to get close to the inspection/demonstration. This is an "at your own risk" Event, as are they all. July 14 is the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association summer meeting and everyone is welcome. There is a $20.00 charge which includes lunch. Sign-in starts at 8:00 a.m. with the proceedings beginning at 9:00 a.m.. The meeting will be held at Lions Hall, 145 Dearborn Street, Redgranite, WI. The keynote speaker is Dr. Dennis van Englesdorp from the University of Maryland and he will be speaking on bee health and Varroa control. For further information visit: https://www.wihoney.org/meetings-and-events/spring-district-meetings/meetings-events/ But if you can't make that, also on July 14 Honey Bee Ware is sponsoring a Customer Appreciation picnic at Lions Park, N1089 Municipal Drive, Grennville, WI, 54942 from 11 - 3. It's a family thing, so bring the kids and grandkids. July 21 we will be returning to our regular meeting schedule on the third Saturday of the month at Caestecker Library in Green Lake at 9:30 a.m. August 2 - 5 is the Green Lake County Fair, and the ECWBA will be there! Hopefully Laurie will have a signup schedule available by our July 21 meeting so people can sign up for a time slot then. Gerard
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ECWBA NewsletterSince 2009 Archives
March 2019
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