The Buzz Newsletter

March 2007

 

 

Page 4

A Word From The Iowa Honey Queen

Hello Beekeepers!

Brrr. . . It's been cold. I think we have been getting pay back for all of the nice weather that we had earlier in the season, hopefully winter is almost over. It's time to start doing an inventory check, and thinking about the upcoming season. It seems that time passes by so quickly.

With the promotion opportunities I have had so far, I have really been able to talk to people about the beekeeping industry. Several people ask "What in the world got you interested in beekeeping?" I explain to them that my dad has been a beekeeper my entire life and therefore I have been interested and have learned about beekeeping throughout my life. I expressed to them that over the years, bees really began to fascinate me, and I wanted to get more involved by becoming a honey queen. It seems that once they start asking questions they can’t stop. I have realized that the word "honeybee," and "beekeeping" is a foreign language to some people. It has been a pleasure to have the opportunity to teach people of all different ages some amazing facts about honeybees.

It is so important to get the future generation interested in beekeeping. I think that it is wonderful that the Iowa Honey Producers have been able to give the younger generation the opportunity to get involved by offering the youth scholarship program, thanks to Teresa for getting the program started.

I am looking forward for warm weather, and future promotions. Please "BEE" thinking of a promotion that you may want me to help you with.

Sincerely,
Chelsa Bronnenberg
2007 Iowa Honey Queen

Beekeeping Education Classes

By the time this goes to press, all of our classes will be underway except for the one in Spencer. That will be a weekend course and is scheduled for March 23th and 24th. Jim Strahan and Pat Ennis will be running that class. We didn’t get enough enrollments to hold the class at DMACC in Ankeny. This may be the result of limited signup time. The window available for holding the course was narrow. We had to schedule it to start a week after the catalog came out. That didn’t give prospective students much time. We’ll try for a different window next year and see what happens.

I didn’t think I was going to get enough for my Marshalltown class but several people signed up the day before class was scheduled to start. We wound up with seven people. Margaret Hala is helping me teach that class. Ron Wehr had five signed up for the class in Washington the last time I talked to him. Pat Randol has a nice group signed up for Winterset. Pat Ennis has a class underway at NIACC. He told me how many he had but I seem to have forgotten.

All of the mentoring students have been hooked up with a class. That got to be a bit of a panic at the end. Overall class enrollment is down a little from last year but we have a number of prospective beekeepers out there. Let’s do what we can to help keep them interested.

Submitted by Phil Ebert

Hive Sentry

Most of you are aware that Jerry Bromenshank [www.beealert.info] has developed a sensing system that can alert beekeepers when their hives start to move when they aren’t supposed to. He has now expanded the system beyond theft protection. The system now allows monitoring of hive temperatures both in the beeyard and during transport on trucks. The satellite has the capability to simultaneously monitor four external devices. Jerry is currently developing a pallet weighing system so you can tell whether colonies are gaining or losing weight. This can allow you to make several judgments as to whether on not you need to visit that yard. He can develop other sensor systems according to beekeeper needs.

The other thing being developed is an electronic hive scanner. Jerry has found that different races of bees have a distinct sound signature, i.e., a different buzz. The sound signature changes when the bees have foulbrood, are crashing from mites, are queenless, etc. In the future, it may be possible to walk through yards and monitor them without opening a lid.

Submitted by Phil Ebert