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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter August 2006 |
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The Buzz – August The summer months have almost come and gone; a beekeepers busiest time is just around the corner. Over the past month I was able to attend a few beekeeping functions.
The beekeepers field day, which was held in Madrid, Iowa, was a day- long event that covered several important aspects of beekeeping. Topics of discussion ranged from hive registration to identifying and treating the Varroa Mite to the method of feeding bees using a barrel. Guest speaker, David Vander Dussen, gave an in-depth presentation on mites and mite control. We broke each item down and went over it thoroughly. After eating a delicious potluck meal, attendants headed outside to actually open up the hive and try out some of the skills they had just learned on detecting mite counts such as using powdered sugar and, the favorite, windshield wiper fluid. For all, it was a very beneficial program and I would encourage all to attend it next year. A small celebration was held at an Ames grocery store called Wheatsfield Grocery to promote local honey products. There were many excited locals visiting the various stations trying to sample all the tasty food, honey being the most popular of course! People asked many questions such as: what affects the flavor of the honey, how do you use comb honey, and even what does it take to be the Iowa Honey Queen- is there a talent part of the competition? For the few hours that I was there, it was very enjoyable; I was able to see many people and chit chat with them over the many uses of honey. As more events come up, feel free to ask me to join in the fun. I am sure I will see many of you at the Iowa State Fair. So, be sure to stop at the Honey Booth and say “hi,” maybe even help work! Sincerely,
You Just Never Know Being the wife of a beekeeper you have to be flexible, patient, tolerant and creative. Having a beekeeper husband means that you will have to put up with sticky spills, sticky door knobs, grungy coveralls that will never be as white as when they came out of the package, and fielding his phone calls when he’s “out with his other ladies – the queen bees and their courts”. In these hot days of summer, when the bees are supposed to be out collecting nectar, you just never know how your day will be interrupted by those darn bees. It could be the UPS driver stopping you on the street to order honey, or the postal carrier with a package of queens and lots of questions, or that phone call from some panicked person saying “Help! There’s a swarm in my tree. Get it out!” Well, we’ve just had an interesting week at our house. Arriving home on July 4 from a long weekend with family, we checked the answering machine to find a call just 3 hours old about a swarm in a tree 10 miles away. After checking with the caller to find out the swarm was still there, Tim loaded equipment while I grabbed the camera. The swarm was nice & tight on a branch about 10 feet off the ground, relatively easy to hive up and take home. End of story? Not quite. Two days later as I was preparing to cook lunch, there was that phone call again, “Help! There’s a swarm in my lilac bush!”. Now your beekeeper husband is never home for these calls, so you get all the pertinent info and promise he’ll call when he gets home. Since this swarm is only 8 blocks from your home, you run over to take a picture (State Fair time is close, you know). This particular swarm chose a very hot day and sit in a bush about 10’ up, in the yard next to a church where a funeral is to be held, and the caller is the sister-in-law of the man who had the swarm on the 4th. Being a concerned, creative wife, you decide to try to experiment and see if you can hive the bees … without getting stung, of course. So go home, find a bottom board, hive body, frames with drawn comb (good luck as hubby has all the good stuff in the apiaries), find a lid and a wide saw horse. Recruit your teenage son to help as he will have creative ideas, too. Then take some old honey along to put in the hive or on the combs and set it all up close to the bush with the swarm. Within 2 minutes you should have some bees investigating. Now you can go home and wait for your husband who may laugh at your attempt. When hubby finally got home and went to check out the swarm, he admitted what I had done probably kept the bees there in the bush so he could hive them properly. After a few more pictures and answering neighbors questions while he hives the bees, I returned home to prepare the evening meal.
A few minutes later the phone rings with another “Help! There are bees swarming in a tree”. Now this time it’s just 2 blocks from home, and only 1 block from the farmers market being held right then. And again, hubby isn’t home. Not having cell phones, you take a chance and head for the closest apiary, just out side of town. Good luck, he’s there and comes right back to take care of this swarm. This swarm choose to sit in a small Hawthorn tree about 5’ off of the ground. After studying the situation, he sets up his hive body under the swarm and attempts to drop them in. Since many bees still cling to the branches, he tries to shake them down. This creates a huge cloud of orange pollen off the tree. But very soon, all the bees are walking down the branch and into the hive. So he’s sure he’s go the queen. Being the dutiful picture taking wife, I got to answer questions from the larger crowd that gathered to watch. Interesting, he hived a swarm at this same house a few years ago, but then it was just under the roof … a large, old 2 story home. This years swarm was much easier to get. Why did we have 2 swarms in town the same day? Who knows. But if you are the wife of a beekeeper, when you answer the phone, be prepared, ‘cause you just never know… Submitted by Melissa Laughlin
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