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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter February 2005 |
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The Beeyard Report I hope that it’s just as wonderful the second time around. I had this all done and saved in the computer. All I had to do was read it over the next day to see if I still liked it, before I sent it off the “The Buzz”. Then the computer pretty much went up in smoke. Not being very computer literate, I had no backup. It was goodbye to my column, e-mail addresses, yard records and a lot of other stuff. Oh, well, that’s life in the fast lane. I wrote the original draft of this at the Tucson airport following the American Honey Producers Convention. The convention well very well attended. The hotel was sold out. Most of the stories I had heard about bee losses in California proved to be true. Losses of 30 to 40% are common. Package bees and queens are going to be expensive and in short supply. Prices for almond pollination are going to exceed $100/colony in some cases. Those of you using Tylosin need to be careful. Research done at Beaverlodge, Alberta, indicates Tylosin leaves significant residue more than six weeks following treatment. They are sure Tylosin is going to be detected in honey supers. This residue is much higher when the medication is delivered in syrup. The same amount delivered as a dust left much lower levels of residue. Reisdue was lowest when Tylosin was delivered in patties but this did not give adequate protection against foulbrood. This leads us into the purity question. The one thing honey has going for it is its image in the market place as a pure product. The Chinese said there was only a little bit of chloramphenicol in their honey. It wasn’t going to hurt anybody. Are we going to say the same about Tylosin? There is a real practical issue here of ‘How do we keep our bees alive without ruining our product?”. I don’t have a good answer to this. All I can say is think about what you are doing and be careful with chemicals. I have been wanting to get my honey tested. Part of this is due to pressure from the state inspector but mostly I wanted to know how clean it was. Bacteria can’t multiply in honey but they can exist there. I really wasn’t sure what to test for so I approached Brent Barkman from Golden Heritage Foods, who was at the meeting. He graciously offered to test my honey for me. We had a number of speakers from The Carl Hayden Research Lab and also paid a visit to the lab. They have patented the fungi treatment for Varroa. Currently they are working on a delivery system. They are planning to encapsulate the fungi and have it slowly released into the colony. They hope to have this on the market in 2006. They are also working on a high protein bee diet. They have found proper feed can significantly lengthen the life of a bee. Another study looked at the way Africanized bees usurped European colonies. The Arizona beekeepers I talked to have to deal with Africanized bees all the time. The have big smokers and say that keeping pollen traps on the hives helps keep the African bees out. I am often amazed at the amount of time people put into volunteer positions. Lyle Johnston, the AHPA president, had a cell phone that was a little over a year old. It had over 9000 calls logged on it. That figures out to about 25 calls per day. When I think about the time that four or five calls take out of my day, it boggles my mind that he could handle that many. This was a much better article the first time. The deadline is here so I have to send this off even though I can’t seem to get on top of the material. Submitted by Phil Ebert
Iowa Honey Producer's Association Committees Please feel free to contact the committee chairman to help with the important tasks of running the IHPA. We sincerely want to accept your offers of help and feel that the organization will only improve with the additional workers. The current committees and the chair of each committee is listed below. Awards..............................................Mark Tintjer Annual Meeting/ Beekeeper Bio's...............................Ron Wehr Education...........................................Phil Ebert Historian............................................Curt Bronnenberg Legislative.........................................Mike Brahms Membership......................................(not identified yet) Newsletter.........................................Tim Laughlin/Phil Ebert Promotions.........................................Margaret Hala Queen Program.................................Regina Jager State Fair...........................................Donna Brahms Bee Emergency.................................(not identified yet)
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