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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter April 2007 |
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Central Iowa Beekeepers April 21, 2007 Held at Harry Hunter’s place: Starts at 10:00 a.m. Questions contact Margaret Hala at (641) 752-2981 or mhala@marshallnet.com SALE CONSIGNMENT LISTING AS OF APRIL 1 so far there have been few consigners, but these
items have been consigned.
THE BEEYARD REPORT It could be worse--a lot worse. Our bees are 30% dead. That’s a lot higher than normal but given the problems we had with mites last fall, I feel pretty good about it. That 30% doesn’t include all the colonies I picked up last fall. Numbers can be misleading. It depends how you use them. We have about 350 left from a peak of 675 last summer. I only had one yard that I could drive into on the first round. That left a lot of walking but I had to get feed to the light ones. I estimate that 30% of our loss was due to starvation. In the past, it has been pretty rare for us to have a colony starve but the fall was chilly. The bees didn’t take syrup well. I am always amazed at some of the colonies that live and, also, at some of the good looking ones that die. I had a colony that had dwindled down to two or three frames of bees by last November. It was too late to unite them with something else. I could have dumped them on the ground but, for some reason, I reduced them to a single box and left them on the pallet. They were still alive in mid March and looked pretty decent with a nice patch of brood. There didn’t appear to be a drop of honey anywhere in the box. How had they managed to survive? I have no idea. There was an interesting article in a recent Bee Journal about installing packages at 22 degrees. I would never have had the nerve to try it but the article made sense. I have been telling people that the package bee situation wouldn’t be as bad as last year but it turned out to be worse. Koehnens called in March to cut my package order back by 1/3. That was after I had most of them sold. That made it necessary to go out and find 200 packages which, of course, cost a lot more than I expected to pay. It’s a blow to the ego when you have to buy from your competitor. After promising packages at a set price I didn’t feel like I could raise the price to people who had already ordered. I did raise the price on the later orders. Fuel prices are climbing again. I am waiting for another government genius to announce that this isn’t inflationary. This actually happened the last time fuel approached $3/gallon. I went to Ames to see Barack Obama with Adam and Alex. One of the things he said was that the best we can hope for from government is that it doesn’t do us too much harm. I could identify with that statement. He reminds me of John Kennedy with his ability to verbalize the issues and energize people. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Kennedy had lived. Would things have evolved into 1968? We are still cleaning up from the ice storm. In a move of unequaled brilliance, I managed to fall off a ladder. Two days later, I came to realize my left hand was really messed up. The doctor was sure it was broken but the X-ray was inconclusive. I have a lot of swelling but they haven’t put me in a cast yet. In the meantime, Alex is running the chain saw. I am working one handed. We are on the cusp of spring. Soon the horses will start losing hair and spring work will be in full swing. I hope everyone has a good spring. Submitted by Phil Ebert
Beekeeping Education Classes The last class for 2007 was held in Spencer. Jim Strahan and Pat Ennis headed this up with help from Larry Boernsen. There were sixteen enrolled in the class. We would up with a total enrollment around 65 in all of the classes. That’s about the same as we had last year. Submitted by Phil Ebert
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