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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter June 2007 |
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Featured Beekeeper of the Month This month’s featured beekeeper is Duane Dufoe. He and his wife, Mitzi, live in Grinnell, Iowa. Duane’s business name is GDB Honey. Gary Starkey, Duane Dufoe and Brian Starkey teamed up in this venture. This was their first year. It seems Phil Ebert and Margaret Hala were teaching a class at Iowa Valley in Marshalltown and Duane has always been interested in keeping bees so this was a good chance to learn. Duane told his friend Gary about the class and the two of them started out. They decided to buy their bees from Curtis Barnhardt. In the course of deciding how many hives to have, Gary’s son Brian said he was interested in a hive and that’s how the three started. Mitzi even helped them extract. The first year they produced 9 gallons of honey from 4 hives. They learned they should have fed the bees as soon as they got home. This year they are thinking abut expanding the operation to 15 to 20 colonies. Duane said they used the honey as gifts to family and friends at Christmas time, but next year his mother will sell honey at the flea markets she is involved with. Duane has attended the field day at Boone and the winter meeting in Marshalltown. He is thinking about working at the State Fair. Learning how to better control mites and splitting hives are next on his agenda. In addition to all the steps in setting up a hive and taking care of it Duane says he has learned what the honeybee bump dance means and writes, “Some days bees have a mind of their own.” Keep on learning and thanks for your story Duane. Submitted by Ron Wehr
NHB Provides Additional
$100,000 in Funds for March 28, 2007 Firestone, Colo. – The National Honey Board (NHB) has approved $100,000 in additional funding for research on the phenomena recently termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), bringing NHB’s total funding to date for CCD research to $158,000. The funding has been awarded to a CCD Working Group composed of university faculty researchers, state regulatory officials, cooperative extension educators and industry representatives. In January, NHB approved an emergency funding request for $13,000 for the group. In addition, NHB approved $45,000 for a CCD research project as part of its 2007 production research funding. In late 2006, some beekeepers began reporting large losses in honey bee colonies. Although bee experts have identified several possible causes, a prevailing theory has yet to emerge. The CCD group and Bee Alert Technology are asking beekeepers’ assistance in reporting instances of honey bee CCD. Beekeepers can assist with this effort by participating in the National Bee Loss Survey at www.beesurvey.com For more information about CCD and the CCD Work Group, visit http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/index.html NHB conducts research, advertising and promotion programs to help maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets for honey. These programs are funded by an assessment of one cent per pound on domestic and imported honey. ###
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