The Buzz Newsletter

February 2007

 

 

Page 8

Midwest Beekeeping Symposium ~ June 9, 2007
SAVE THE DATE

The Illinois State Beekeepers Association is proud to announce its upcoming Beekeeping Symposium. This full day meeting will feature:

Keynote Presentations
General Sessions
Breakout Sessions
A "Beginner's Track" of Sessions
Beekeeping Supply Vendors
A Provided Lunch

Please save the date and look for further details to be releases in early 2007. Please also refer to the Illinois State Beekeepers Association website for the latest information www.isba.us

The Symposium will be located at the McHenry County College (MCC) Conference Center, in Crystal Lake, IL. For a campus map and driving directions, you may visit here: www.mchenry.edu/Maps

The 2007 Midwest Beekeeping Symposium is sponsored by:

Illinois State Beekeepers Association

Stateline Beekeepers Association

Lake County Beekeepers Association

Northern Illinois Beekeepers Association

Cook-DuPage Beekeepers Association

McHenry County College

Questions can be directed to ISBA President, Ken Haller via e-mail at: vikinghoneyfarm@comcast.net

 

Featured Beekeeper of the Month

This month our featured beekeepers are Mark and Mary Million. They live in Earlham, Iowa. They started keeping bees for fun as a hobby in the spring of 2002. At this point the size of their operation is 4 colonies. They use the honey themselves and give honey for gifts. Occasionally they sell the honey and candle3s. In the future they may expand their colonies because more people are asking for honey. Mary is interested in candles and hosted a honey-candle party featuring all beeswax to see if local interest is there.

Mark and Mary like watching and caring for their bees. They enjoy watching the bees forage and challenge of keeping the colonies alive over the winter.

The Millions have an interesting beekeeping group. They helped two other couples get started in beekeeping. Now the three couples help each other out caring for the bees, medicating colonies and harvesting honey.

In the Iowa Honey Producers Association, Mark and Mary are members and have worked at the State Fair booth for the last three years. They also attend the State meeting in Marshalltown.

 

Mary about to install a new package of bees into the hive.

Mark and Mary will tell you that educating others is a very important part of beekeeping. Three times last year Mark went to remove bees and all three turned out to be wasps. We’ve all been there!

Thanks for sharing your interesting story about beekeeping.

Submitted by Ron Wehr