Beekeepers of the Bitterroot Meeting Notes

August 12, 2017

 

Club extractor – Contact Loren Stormo if you’d like to use the club’s honey extractor.

 

Varroa monitoring – If you haven’t done a mite count this season, go! Do it now! Treat right away if mite counts have reached the treatment threshold (40 mites on a sticky board in 24 hours). Most treatments have to be used within certain temperature ranges and without honey supers in place.

 

Winterizing – Plan ahead and be prepared for cold weather. Here are a few things to consider for winterizing your colonies:

• Hive should consist of two deep boxes, a solid bottom board, an inner cover (if you use one), a lid and a reduced entrance.

• A colony needs 100 pounds of honey (10 full, deep frames) to make it through the winter. Borrow from more productive colonies if needed.

• Insulating a hive is a matter of personal preference; ask your mentor or a club officer for more information. Those who do insulate their hives wait until flight has stopped, usually in October.

 

Fair tickets – More info from Tracie Norman soon regarding fair tickets for members who will be volunteering at the bee club booth.

 

Q&A overview

• Laying workers – Richard Norman and Jerry Bromenshank agree that the best way to deal with laying workers is to shake them off of the brood frames 100+ yards away from the hive. They don’t fly and won’t be able to find their way back to the hive. The book The Beekeeper’s Problem Solver by James E. Tew says this does not work.

• Pollen patties – Feed in the fall or not? Some say no because they stimulate brood production and fall is not the time for that. Others say yes because it’s good to “fatten” the bees up before winter. Patties with lower protein (4%) are for fall feeding, and higher protein patties (15%) are for spring feeding.

• Requeening vs. letting the colony raise a new queen – General discussion. Most agreed it’s a bit late in the season now for colony to raise its own queen.

• Crystals in honey – There is nothing wrong with crystalized honey! Crystallization is a natural occurrence and seems to depend on the type of nectar the bees stored. Alfalfa, clover and canola honeys crystalize the fastest. If your honey crystalizes, just warm it gently to liquefy it.

• Lots of other great questions and discussion. Remember, there is exactly one correct answer for every beekeeping question. That answer is: “It depends.”

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Beekeepers of the Bitterroot Meeting Notes

September 9, 2017

 

Brood Minder – Jaylene showed the wireless beehive telemetry toy device she acquired at the Western Apiculture Society conference she attended in Davis, CA last week. https://broodminder.com/

 

Scott Debnam from the University of Montana attended this meeting. He reminds us that we are the bees’ keepers, not their masters. He then answered many questions:

 

Getting hives ready for winter

• We’ve been helping our colonies to prepare for winter all summer by providing them with plenty of room for brood and honey, and by monitoring and treating for pests and diseases.

• The bees are primarily responsible for readying themselves for winter, not the beekeeper.

• Guard bees in strong colonies do an excellent job of keeping out wasps and yellow jackets (and drones!) at this time of year. Weaker colonies are vulnerable to robbing; adding an entrance reducer makes the guard bees’ job easier.

• Entrance should be reduced in October or November to keep cold wind out. If you use a screened bottom board, put on a solid bottom board.

• Bees need at least 100 pounds of honey in the hive to survive the Montana winter.

• Wrap hives with a layer of #30 roofing felt in November. Multiple hives can be pushed together and wrapped as a group.

• Condensation/humidity inside the hive is not much of a concern in our climate.

• Scott regularly overwinters with hives with 3 deep boxes. He explained the bees will heat their cluster, not the entire cavity.

 

Nosema

• Nosema apis results in visible spotting (feces) in the hive.

• Nosema ceranae has no visible symptoms.

• Both types can be diagnosed microscopically and treated with Fumigilin.

Monitoring for varroa mites

• Monitor frequently throughout the season and treat only when needed.

• Treatment threshold is 40+ mites on an entire sticky board in 24 hours. This threshold is the same no matter the time of year.

• Scott does not recommend treating unless the threshold is reached. “Give the bees a chance to toughen up.”

 

Treating for varroa mites

• The product you use to treat mites will depend on your situation and the time of year.

• Oxalyic acid should only be used when no brood is present.

• Apiguard cannot be used with honey supers on.

• Mite Away Quick Strips can be used with honey supers on.

 

Signs that a hive is being robbed

• Erratic flight patterns outside the hive

• The erratic bees are not defensive

• Sticky footprints at the entrance

• Torn cappings on the bottom board or around the entrance

• Yellow jackets coming and going freely

• If a colony is being robbed, install an entrance reducer so the bees have a smaller space to defend.

 

Forest fire smoke

• Bees will stay close to the hive, won’t forage much and will eat their stored honey during periods of heavy forest fire smoke. Scott recommends we feed our bees now.

• During regular weather, 15 POUNDS of bees leave the hive each day to forage. Compare this with only 2 pounds of bees that go out to forage during periods of heavy smoke.

 

Bees with attitude

• Bees can be crabby in the fall. They have lots of stored honey to defend and have probably lined their boxes with propolis. They get mad when we mess with these things. Forest fire smoke can have an impact as well.

• Extreme behavior changes may indicate that the colony has requeened itself.

Pollen substitute

• Scott does not recommend fall feeding of pollen substitute for hobbyists. The bees are smart enough to forage for and store what they need.

• Successful colonies need to be able to manage themselves.

• Commercial beekeepers use pollen substitute in the fall to stimulate brood production prior to moving bees to a new pollination site.

 

Requeening

• Best time is swarm season.

• Get queens from as close to home as possible, or let the colony raise its own queen.

 

Feeding

• Honey is the best bee food – imagine that! Be sure you’re leaving plenty of honey (100+ pounds) for the bees to eat over the winter.

• Syrup made from regular table sugar (not corn syrup, etc.) is the best supplemental feed.

 

Inspections

• Inspect every two weeks. Wait until bees are flying vigorously before opening the hive.

• Open the lid and look in the top box. If this is a honey storage box, there’s no need to remove each frame. Just take a peek, make sure everything looks okay and put the lid back on. Move the top box and lid to the side (place it on an inverted lid nearby in such a way that bees can fly in and out).

• Look down into the next box. Count how many frames are covered with bees and make note. Remove one of the outside frames and set it aside. Slide the next frame over without pulling it out of the hive and continue until you get to a frame with lots of brood. Carefully remove one brood frame and inspect it for:

  • Brood, all stages (remember, presence of eggs means the queen has been there within the last three days)

  • Brood pattern

  • Signs of diseases

• Return the brood frame and examine a second brood frame in the same way.

• Return all frames to the hive body in their original orientation, place a cover on the box and move it aside with the box you already removed.

• Repeat the brood chamber inspection steps for the next brood box.

• Reassemble the hive.

• Record your total frame count, approximate number of honey frames and any other pertinent notes.

 

Equipment from diseased colonies

• Foulbrood - Frames from colonies infected with foulbrood should be burned. The inside of infected hive bodies can be flamed with a torch until they are blackened.

• Nosema - is killed by freezing.

• Chalkbrood – All colonies have it, but it is only expressed in weak colonies. If you see chalky mummies, be sure to check the colony for other problems.

• Viruses live in the bees, not in the equipment.

 

Laying workers

• Queen pheromones prevent ovary development in workers. If the queen dies, the pheromones go away and workers may begin to lay eggs. Workers will only ever be able to lay drone eggs.

• Laying workers have never been outside of the hive. Other worker bees become very protective of them.

• To get laying workers out of a colony, take the hive bodies 30+ yards away from the apiary and shake all the bees out of them. Return the hive bodies to the apiary. The laying workers will not be able to find their way back to the hive, but the other bees will. Introduce a new queen after the bees return.

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We missed getting minutes for this meeting. {:-(>

Saturday October 14, 2017   9-11 AM

Here is what was scheduled for the meeting.

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We'll meet at the Hamilton Assembly of God Church, 601 W Main, Hamilton (entrance in the rear – remember to bring a non-perishable food donation to thank them for use of their space.)

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Hi fellow beekeepers!!
It's hard to believe that summer is nearly over, and that snow may even fly this week.  I know that some of you had problems with queens this year, and if you weren't at last month's meeting, we asked Scott Debnam about it.  He said that if there were issues with the queens to begin with, that you had done nothing wrong.  I don't know if that'll make you feel any better, but at least it makes me feel that we aren't completely incompetent!

HONEY TASTING!

For the last portion of our meeting, we'll do a honey tasting featuring YOUR honey!  Please bring a small jar of your honey to share.  We'll write our names and general location on cards when you get to the meeting.  I had hoped to do a semi-formal tasting, like I experienced at the Western Apicultural Society meeting, but it would require that I have samples ahead of time, etc.  Maybe we'll be able to work that into the January class :)  

WESTERN APICULTURAL SOCIETY CONFERENCE

I'm going to share some of what I learned at the WAS meeting last month.  I promise not to PowerPoint you to tears.  Mainly, I want to encourage everyone to attend next year's conference in Boise and to share some of the awesome stuff I got to hear about!

WHAT WORKED AND WHAT DIDN'T WORK

We'll spend some time reflecting on our summer of beekeeping.  What successes you had, and your failures...what do you want to do better for next year?  What can we do as a club, and what can you do to help you and others be more successful?

PREPARING FOR WINTER

We'll have another brief discussion on what you should do to get your hives ready for winter.  All of your hives should have about 10 lbs (or 10 brood frames) of honey already.  If they don't, you should be feeding!  We'll talk about cold-weather treatment options for varroa mites, and fall feeding ideas.

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NOVEMBER OFFICER ELECTIONS AND TWO BITS OF EXCITING NEWS!

Each November, we elect our new officers.  There has actually never been a real election in the sense that not more than one person volunteers to run for a position!  

I (Jaylene) am resigning/retiring as our club president.  I've very much enjoyed my last 4 years of involvement with the club, and am certainly not abandoning it!  It looks like I'll become the Director-At-Large for Western Apicultural Society.  This means that I'll be able to develop more connections that will benefit our club :)  This year's VP Loren Stormo (our Vape-A-Mite creator!) has agreed to step up :)  If anyone else is interested in running for club president, let me know!  At this point, we need people to run for vice-president, secretary and treasurer.  Call me or shoot me an email if you're interested and I can give you more information and get you on the official ballot.

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MONTANA STATE BEEKEEPER'S ASSOCIATION HOBBY BEEKEEPERS MEETING - OCT 21

On Saturday, Oct 21, the MT State Beekeepers will be hosting a meeting in Bozeman from 9am - ? Featured speakers include Scott Debnam, Jerry Bromenshenk, Dr. Dale Hill (bee nutritionist), and our MT state apiculturist.  This will be a great opportunity to hear from experts and meet other hobby beekeepers from around the state!  I'll have more details on this soon.  I'll be there, and I hope you can pop over for the day!

SUPER EXCITING NEWS!  

Randy Oliver of scientificbeekeeping.com is coming to Montana on July 6, 2018!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can't possibly tell you how exciting this is!!!!  Obviously, I'll inundate you with more details as they get ironed out.  I'm planning for us to do a mini-conference in conjunction with the Missoula Club (Big Sky Beekeepers) and others in Western MT, Idaho and E. Washington.  I really can't wait!

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Beekeepers of the Bitterroot Meeting Notes

November 11, 2017

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New officers elected by acclamation:

• President – Loren Stormo

• Vice President – Tim Meyer

• Secretary/Treasurer – Diane McBride

 

Ideas/to-do list for the coming year:

• Purchase a microscope

• Write club bylaws

• “Bee-ginner” class on January 27 at Bitterroot College – volunteers needed!

• Facilitate more local group activities, small group inspections, mentoring relationships

• Encourage hobbyists to register their apiaries with the Montana Department of Agriculture

• Hold intermediate/advanced workshops in conjunction with the Missoula beekeeping club

• Randy Oliver presentation at UM July 6 and field day at Ft. Missoula

• Form a club apiary

• Find a permanent home for club equipment storage and use

 

Motion:

• Warren Neyenhuis moves that the club forms a committee to investigate purchasing a microscope and display peripherals at a cost of $500.

• Diane McBride seconds.

• Motion carries.

• Committee: Loren Stormo, Warren Neyenhuis, Diane McBride

 

Club website – Tim Meyer has been updating the website. Take a look at https://www.beekeepersofthebitterroot.org/

No meeting in December or January. Loren will send out a Doodle poll soon to schedule a “Bee-ginner” class planning meeting.

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