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Monday, June 27, 2011
ECWBA Newsletter - June 2011
Meeting Dates
· July 9, 2011, 9:30 am. Fond du Lac Public Library, Fond du Lac, WI.
· September 10, 2011, 9:30 am. Ripon Library, Ripon, WI.
Meeting Locations
· The July 9, 2011, meeting will be at the Fond du Lac Public Library in the Eugene McLane Room. The library’s address is 32 Sheboygan Street, Fond du Lac, WI.
· The September 10, 2011, meeting is scheduled for Ripon Library in the
Silver Creek Room.
June Meeting
The June field day that took the place of the usual May field day was a great success. Sponsored by Denise Palkovich, she showed us her two over wintered hives. One of the two hives was used to demonstrate developing a nucleus colony. From this hive she took five frames appropriate for building a nucleus hive and placed them in a nuc box. From those frames the bees should develop a queen. Denise will have to keep us updated on the success of the developing new colony. Thank-you Denise for sponsoring the field day!!!
July Meeting
At the July meeting we will have a demonstration of a refractometer used for testing the moisture content of honey. The ECWBA organization will decide to purchase one or more refractometers for use by members.
September Meeting
For the September meeting, we will have the beekeeping products bazaar. All members are encouraged to bring in a product derived from anything from the beehive. Whatever you bring in, please be prepared to give a brief description of the product and be ready to answer any questions. Please feel free to share your recipe and techniques for making the product.
Also, the refractometers (if purchased) should be ready for use at the September meeting. Bring in this year’s honey crop samples for moisture testing.
Beekeeping Notes
It is hard to believe that summer is officially here and that the days are now actually getting shorter. This is the time to think ahead about the honey harvest and plan for harvesting and extracting honey and obtaining honey jars or containers for storing honey. Also, just after the honey harvest in early fall is a good time to treat for Varroa mites. Plan now for what type of treatment you might want to apply if you to choose to treat for mites.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at 715-330-9969. I’m sometimes hard to contact, but leave a message and I’ll call you back. Or contact me via e-mail at jeff.champeau@yahoo.com.
Best of beekeeping,
Jeff Champeau
President, ECWBA
Monday, June 20, 2011
LOCAL QUEENS
Jon Polcyn, a bee keeper in Montello Wisconsin, is raising queens. He has queens from two types of stock; Proline Varroa Sensitive and USDA Hygenic. He indicates the queens will hatch about June 23rd. He can supply unhatched queens, hatched and unbred queens or bred queens. Please note his drones will be a mix of varieties. He doesn't do artificial insemmination. Contact Jon at 920-229-3046. He is located about 6 miles SW of Princeton.
Field Day
We couldn't have asked for better conditions at the hives for FIELD DAY (this past Saturday). About 12/15? keepers were on hand.
The girls were on their best behavior - no stings....they even SOUNDED happy.
Earlier that morning - I took a 10 frame box and modified it into (2) 5-frame nuc box (you more or less put a divider down the middle and alter the bottom board). So - when we got into the 3 DEEP hive....if the opportunity arose to grab eggs for my NUC - we'd do so....and OPPORTUNITY came.
The top deep of the hive was of course VERY HEAVY - more or less full of honey/food....with a little extension of the 2nd deep's brood nest into it.
In the 2nd deep, we found an AMAZING brood pattern - FULL FRAMES (great queen!) We then found her highness right where she should be - on somewhat empty frames in the middle of the brood nest. We took this frame with her aside...and stole 5 frames from the area for our NUC.
I don't know what's up with these bees - for some reason - THEY ARE FULLY CAPABLE of keeping 3 deeps!!! the boxes are LOADED WITH BEES ON EVERY LEVEL! There were no signs of swarm cells or pre-swarm activity (What are we going to see in this hive if it's getting ready to swarm (besides swarm cells)? ALL CAPPED BROOD - no eggs/larvae...etc AND - we'd have bees that "seem" restless and touchy)
We had a nice discussion about HOW BEES HATE QUEEN EXCLUDERS too.... it was a good day...