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Featured Beekeeper of the Month

This month our featured beekeeper is Kaylie Strauss. She lives with hear parents, Eric and Amie and brother Jonathan in rural Dunkerton, Iowa, where they raise bees, chickens and Hereford cattle. Kaylie is one of the participants in the mentor program that is part of the Iowa Honey Producers project to get more people interested in beekeeping. Kaylie is in the 8th grade at Dunkerton Community School and is involved in TAG, Jr. High Volleyball and beekeeping. Reading, listening to music and hanging out with friends are hobbies and she plans to go to college in Iowa. She is thinking about writing and science.

Eric and Kaylie Strauss check on the progress the hives have made.

Kaylie took some classes from Pat and Peggy Ennis. She learned how important bees are to our lives. Kaylie says, “We started with 4 hives. In August, we looked out our back door and saw a cloud of bees, thousands of them. We went and checked our 4 hives to make sure ours didn’t swarm and they were fine. We came back and the swarm landed on our garage and eventually moved inside the garage in a box. We scrambled to assemble a hive body to place the bees in. We did get them in successfully and now enjoy our 5th hive.

“In August, we looked out our back door and saw a cloud of bees, thousands of them..”

In the future Kaylie plans to expand her number of colonies. She’s getting a good start.

Good luck with your bees this spring Kaylie.

Submitted by Ron Wehr