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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter May 2006 |
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THE BEEYARD REPORT April 2nd, I received a phone call from the guy hauling my package bees. He said, ”I’m near Cheyenne, Wyoming. We’ll be there in 13 or 14 hours and, by the way, you are going to be 127 packages short”. My blood pressure immediately spiked. My load was 25% short. What were we going to do? The only solution was to spread the pain and cut everybody. We finished unloading the truck around 7:00 AM. Within the hour, people were starting to show up. We still didn’t have things worked out. We made it up on the fly. There was no way to make it entirely equitable. What made it really hard was that I got more 3# packages than I had ordered. The shortage was all in 2#. I had to switch some of the 2# orders to 3#, which of course cost more money. I had planned to load my truck immediately and haul packages to Kalona and then on to Illinois, but it took us all day to get a handle on what we were doing. There were a number of calls to Illinois while we tried to get everybody in the loop about what was happening. The customers took it better than I did. I am always amazed at how much heat packages can generate. The packages come in racks of five and we stack them six high in our garage. The temperature was in the mid forties but there was a sharp wind that made the day feel cold. It got so warm in the garage that we had to open the doors and windows so the breeze could blow through the building. It was still hot. We finally hosed the packages down with the garden hose. We had planned to do a video on package bees. We got footage of the truck coming into the driveway and getting unloaded but that was all. There weren’t any packages left of us. A package arriving in early April has plenty of time to develop. I had planned to hive a few and then pull some brood out to them at the end of May and make some additional colonies. I think I would still have gotten enough bees to make a crop by the latter part of June if we kept them in a single brood box. Maybe we can try it next year. I knew the weather had been bad during almond pollination but I didn’t realize it had continued on through March. Brood rearing in California pretty much shut down. There just weren’t enough bees when it came time to shake packages. Our bees look pretty good. We are building nucs to sell and new colonies for us that will be run as singles. We started on the 13th and have only been at it for a couple of days. Most of the first day was spent getting organized. We have 30 nucs and 20 singles done so far. We are averaging two frames of brood from each colony. It will be higher in another week until we get to the three lame yards that we have. It has been warm enough that there haven’t been a lot of bees on the brood frames. This isn’t a problem with the colonies that we are building for singles but it is a real problem for the nucs. We have to get frames well covered with bees. We can still get some chilly nights and need enough bees to keep the brood warm. To get around this problem we shake extra bees into the boxes we are hauling the brood in. We don’t look for the queens but we see them once in a while. When we have a populous colony where we happen to find the queen, we shake three or four frames of bees into the brood box. We leave all the brood behind so the colony can regenerate quickly. Spring work wears me down a lot more than it used to. That may be because there is a lot more of it than there used to be. Age surely doesn’t have anything to do with it. I hope everybody has a productive spring. Submitted by Phil Ebert
Honey Prices Honey prices climbed about twenty cents in a two week span in early April. There are several loads out of South Dakota that brought $1/lb. I’m never sure what drives these price surges. The Argentine crop was 30% to 40% short but there are some big U.S. producers that are sitting on two years worth of honey. The legislation to close the bonding loophole has made it out of committee and is attached to other legislation. It is unknown if and when it will actually pass. If it does pass, Chinese honey immediately goes over $1/lb. Prices on the Mid America Honey Hotline range from 87 cents to one dollar. These prices pertain only to large lots. If you are selling in local markets you should be getting a lot more. There is a lot of empty equipment in California. Bees are hard to get. Colony numbers will probably be down this year. Things could get interesting. Submitted by Phil Ebert
Apple and Honey Pizza 1 chilled pie crust Roll pie dough into flat 12 inch circle. Place on buttered foil. Fold over edge of dough to make rim. Prick pastry and brush with honey. Cover with applesauce and apple slices. Sprinkle with nuts, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes or until crust is browned. Serves 6-12. Recipe from cooks.com
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