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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter January 2007 |
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Featured Beekeeper of the Month This month’s featured beekeeper is Ivan Rickers. He lives in Westside, IA. This is his story. I first became involved with honeybees when I was fourteen. My oldest brother bought the bees off an old beekeeper who had died and I took them over. We purchased three 3lb. packages of bees and I believe the cost was five dollars each. In 1957 I bought 300 colonies and extracting equipment from John Kruger at Deloit, Iowa. I learned my beekeeping from him and Herald Partello at Boone, Iowa and the state bee inspectors Glen Stanley, Bill Shawler and Larry Greiner. Over the years I increased my colony count to between 800 and 900 colonies. In the early ears my wife helped some with the bees but then she became allergic and that ended that. When my boys got old enough they helped in the bees along with my oldest daughter.
Our management system consisted of bringing power houses through the winter and evening them up to 5 frames each by the first of May and making 5 or 6 or 7 frame nucs from the excess brood. We also made 2 queen colonies in 5 yards starting with 1 frame nucs over single screens. This made power house colonies and was much simpler than the 2 screeners the Minnesota people used. We made the 2 queen colonies until the tracheal mite came in and we haven’t done them since then. For several years we got all of our queens from Louis Harbin at Theodore, Alabama. He produced excellent queens and we had an excellent working arrangement with him. During those years we used some packages and hauled packages for Louis, delivering to his customers in Iowa and Minnesota. That ended when he passed away. After that we started raising our own queens and made 3 way splits in August. We made 300 or 400 of these and wintered them in a refrigerated trailer converted for that purpose. We did that until about 1998 when the honey house burned down and the boys moved on to greener pastures. When the SMR queens came out, I requeened everything with them. They are resistant to varroa but I think they are not as productive. I next used an SMR mated to a carniolan and the following years I used Minnesota Hygenic queens. All grafting of queens came from Glenn Apiaries in California. Requeening in August is work but it makes for good honey crops. Right now I am operating 160 colonies of bees. I still buy about 50 mated queens every spring to even up with and make nucs. I did not requeen this summer because the mite treatment screws up the schedule. In August we pull off the honey crop down to the brood nest. We never extract honey from the brood nest. As we do this, we put on the mite treatment on every hive. The treatment is on the bees 3 or 4 weeks depending on what we use. This year we used Apigaurd and MiteAway II. The Apigaurd is thymol oil. MiteAway II is formic acid. Both occur naturally and don’t contaminate the hive or honey and don’t hurt the bees. When the mite treatment is over, we go back through them and check them for weight. If they are light we have to feed them so they will come through the winter in good shape. We feed them high fructose corn syrup. We also put insulated lids on the bees for winter. I am a member of the Iowa Honey Producers Association and have been president, vice president and a board member. In 1980 I was named Iowa Beekeeper of the Year and in 2004 they gave me the Pioneer Award. Ivan Rickers Thanks Ivan!
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