The Buzz Newsletter

Page 8

Annual Awards Nominations

Iowa Honey Producers send in your nominations for the Annual Awards. The Annual Meeting is just around the corner Nov. 12th and 13th. If you know someone who should be recognized for an award please send your nominations to:

Mark Tintjer
25711 L Ave.
Hubbard, IA. 50122
or e-mail mltintjer@netins.net

We will not necessarily give all of these awards in any one year.

1. Pioneer Award - for having been involved for 50 years or more & still active in beekeeping.

2. Distinguished Service Award - for assisting other beekeepers, willing to share information, and/or serving the association.

3. Education Award - teaching beekeeping classes, speaking at service clubs, giving presentations to school children or speaking about beekeeping on radio or T.V.

4. Promotions Award - for promoting honey and beekeeping, promotions for the state association of promoting their own product.

5. Friendship Award - for being a friend of the association. This could be someone who has displayed at the annual IHPA trade show, a state official who has assisted or encouraged beekeeping, someone outside our industry of producing honey.

6. Youth Award - for a young person who has shown commendable involvement in such things as helping at the state fair, successfully keeping bees for at least one season including wintering, writing, making a float for a parade, speaking, etc.

Submitted by Mark Tintjer

Clay County Fair Report

This is a short note of how the outcome of the Clay County Fair. The first three days of the fair were nice and we had a good crowd on Saturday and Sunday and sales were good. Monday had good sales although slightly lower than either Saturday or Sunday. The rain started Monday night and continued until Tuesday night. Spencer and the surrounding communities received 6 to 8 inches of rain. The creeks and rivers were either bank full or overflowing or rising. The little Sioux River that runs through Spencer and right next to Leach Campground where I was camping caused all of the campers in the lower level of the campground to be moved out by Wednesday evening by dark. Thank goodness I was on the upper level this year and didn’t have to move my camper.

Wednesday and Thursday it was cool and nice. On Friday, about 9:30 in the morning it started to rain and it rained steady until about 4 PM. It put another 3 ¾ inches of rain on Spencer. The little Sioux River finally peaked at 15 feet on Saturday night and started to drop by Sunday morning. I had lots of good help from the volunteers that have started keeping bees in that part of Iowa. The sales were good for the total fair considering the amount of rain and lack of fair visitors on Tuesday and Friday. We didn’t do as good as last year in sales, but the honey candy and honey stix went like hotcakes. We had a good supply and variety of honey at the booth. We had about 400 to 500 children come by our booth for “Agciting” day activities on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Hopefully more of the local beekeepers will be able to supply the honey for the Clay County Fair next year. A special thanks to Jim and Sandy Strachan for helping to set up the booth this year and all of the before scenes work they did. I also want to thank them and Larry and Marlene Boernson and family for helping to take the booth down and to pack up things after the fair. Kevin Berkland offered the use of a couple of the posters that he had made and used in his 4-H project and they added a lot to the booth this year. Thanks, Kevin. I will try to give a full report later and thanks to everyone that worked at the booth.

Submitted by Gordon Powell