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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter July 2004 |
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Greetings from the President of the IHPA Dear Iowa Honey Producers: We are having a hard time keeping our honey bees
grounded! On May 22 I woke Mike up saying things were hitting
our house, should we go to the basement? Mike never is one to
get too worried, but this time he said yes! Remember how the dishes
rattled in “Twister” the movie? Well, my good china
in the cabinet started jiggling. After the storm passed, Mike
went outside in the pouring rain to check feeder buckets on the
hives. We didn’t want the poor things to drown. In the process,
he couldn’t find one of the hives and one had been flipped
completely over on its cover. He turned it back. After a length
of time, we decided to investigate outside with a little ride
in our pick-up to try to locate the missing hive. We couldn’t
find it, but we did discover a downed electrical wire about four
feet off the road. Lots of trees were down and not many shingles
were left on our house, part of our sun porch roof was missing
and we had several broken windows. A huge limb was down across
the entire garden and on top of our grapevines. Around 1:30 a.m.
the power company cut the line across the road and went to more
important areas to start the clean-up and restoring the power
poles, lines and current. We did receive power at 5:30 a.m. In
the daylight we did find part of the frames for the missing hive
all in a heap and very wet. Mike and our friend Jack (who loaned
us his chainsaw) put the frames and soaked bees into another hive
body, found a new inner cover and a new lid for them. Water was
running out of the entrance for a while and the poor bees were
just kind of moving around very slowly, looking like they were
on their last legs. Several days later, when we checked the hive,
there were eggs! We never did find the remaining frames, but have
since recovered the feeding buckets, several broken inner covers,
the broken hive body and more shingles, limbs, insulation, plywood
than I care to find again. Our insurance company has been very
busy this spring visiting us. Our new steel roof will be in place
very soon. I have received several requests to work in the
state fair booth. Keep the requests coming. We are going to need
a lot of help and everyone is welcome to join the fun. The sign-up
information is included again in this edition of the BUZZ. Call,
e-mail or mail me to sign up for a shift.
Iowa Honey Queen, Maria Zuber, Regina Jager and I have talked to several sessions of teachers in conjunction with the Iowa Farm Bureau during their teacher academy workshops held in four places across the state. We are hoping to get the information to a lot of teachers that the honey business is a wealth of information to their classrooms. We handed out IHPA directories and an information sheet for references to the National Honey Board. If you receive a call from a teacher asking you to speak to a class and you are not interested in doing so, please contact me and I will see if I can do it or I will try to find another beekeeper in the area to do it. We need to get the next generation of beekeepers interested. Everyone enjoy your summer with all the activities and sun. Remember to attend the Field Day, help at the Iowa State Fair, enter exhibits at the fair and to enjoy the time spent with fellow beekeepers. Sincerely, Donna Brahms, IHPA President
The Buzz Newsletter Submissions Please send submissions, classified ads, and photos
to Alex W. Ebert by email to TheBuzz@ABuzzAboutBees.com The Buzz is a monthly newsletter published by the Iowa Honey Producers Association which is an affiliate of the Iowa State Horticultural Society. IHPA Membership is only $10 annually. To join IHPA and receive your complimentary member subscription to The Buzz Newsletter, please contact:
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