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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter April 2006 |
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IHPA Partnership Program Do you know a young person interested in keeping bees? Encourage them to apply to be an IHPA Partnership Program Scholar! Youth aged 12-17 from non-beekeeping families are encouraged to apply. Four scholars will be selected at the Annual Meeting, and they will receive all the equipment and training needed to get started. The strength of this program will be the wonderful
IHPA members who will be the mentors to these devoted youth. We
need you! If you would be wiling to introduce one Iowa youth to
the wonderful industry that we all love, please contact Teresa
Jurchen at teresajurchen@hotmail.com or 712-779-0321. You can
also look for more information at Submitted by Teresa Jurchen FFA Convention The Iowa Honey Producers will have a booth at the state FFA convention in Ames on April 10-11th. This event is held at the Scheman Center and will be attended by over 4.000 students and their advisors. There are over 220 FFA chapters in Iowa. This is a great opportunity to get our youth mentoring project off the ground. We also hope to connect local beekeepers with local FFA chapters to sell honey in conjunction with fruit sales. Vern Ramsey has made contact with several chapters in his area and the response has been very positive. Beekeepers and beekeeping need to be visible to the public. This will provide an opportunity for us to show ourselves. Teresa Jurchen will be in charge of the project. She will be surveying advisors who are interested in incorporating honey sales into their fundraisers. If you are interested in selling honey through the FFA, you need to contact Teresa at teresajurchen@hotmail.com. If there is more than one provider in a given area, all names of the interested parties will be furnished to the FFA chapter. It will be up to individual beekeepers to make the sale. If you are interested in this, you need to remember that the FFA expects to make 40% on the products they sell. Candidates for the youth mentoring project will be solicited at the convention. Selections will be made in the fall. At this point we only have funding for four students. Candidates need to be between the ages of 12 to 17. They will be provided with bees, equipment, training and a mentor. If they successfully complete the one year program, they will assure ownership of the bees and equipment. If you are interested in becoming a mentor, you need to contact Teresa. We will have more detailed information in an upcoming issues of “The Buzz” Submitted by Phil Ebert CIBA Officer Elections We had our regular third Saturday of the third month meeting and held our annually election of officers and directors Results: OFFERCERS President - Arvin Foell Vice President – Ellie Johnson Sec/Treasurer – Margaret Hala DIRECTORS: Bill Van Rockel John Humke Phil Ebert Submitted by Arvin Foell
The Southeast Iowa Beekeepers met at 6:00p.m. at the Sirloin Stockade for their winter meeting. There were 34 members and guests present. The meeting was called to order by vice president Ray Tull. Minutes were read and the treasurer report given. Vern Ramsey explained a project to get more young beekeepers started. It involves kids in the FFA program. The club voted to provide gloves and veils to help 3 kids get set up in beekeeping. We also are donating boxes of bees, smokers, and hive tools. This equipment is issued with the understanding if you don’t continue beekeeping it will be returned for use by another person. It was also discussed asking the FFA groups if they would be interested in selling honey as a fundraiser. Ron Wehr took orders for corn syrup. All officers were reelected. Bernie Andrew, our evening speaker donated his fee to the veil and gloves fund. He also spoke to us about mites and showed us a tape of his honey house. Eight door prizes were handed out. Dues were collected. Our next meeting will be sometime in April when we get package bees to install in hives. Submitted by Ron Wehr
Master Beekeeping Scholarship We have had one application for the Master Beekeeper scholarship, so far. Applications are due by May 1st. Take advantage of this opportunity and apply today. Include your name, address, phone number and/or e-mail along with a one or two paragraph bio about yourself. The Master Beekeeping Workshop is June 22-24th. Send to :
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