BEELINES April, 2006

Regularly scheduled meetings are on the 2^nd Tuesday of each month. 7 p.m.
Meetings at 1305 Pine Avenue in Snohomish in the Christ the King Lutheran Church building.

Next Meeting: Tuesday April 11, 2006

Dates to Remember
Apr 11: NWDBA Meeting
May 9: NWDBA Meeting
June 10: Pullman Field Day at WSU
July 15: Puyallup Field Day
July 16: NWDBA Picnic??
October 12-14: State Convention hosted by Mt Baker, Best Western Lakeway Inn, Bellingham

April Meeting
We had thought that Mark Campbell, the fair director, would speak at our April meeting about liability, logistics, and opportunity but he has a schedule conflict.  He is currently scheduled for the May meeting.  We should have an update from Stan Pallo, chairman of the fair committee.

Please come as I'm sure something will be discussed about bees!  If nothing else, we can lament the bad weather in California delaying our package bee deliveries, gossip about our lost bees, and get some tips on April Beekeeping.

BeezNeez Apiary Supply Sold
After many successful years serving Snohomish County, the BeezNeez has been sold by Jean Bassett to Jim Tunnell.  You'll still see Jean around the shop for a while as she helps with package bee deliveries and helps acquaint Jim and his daughter Rachel with the day-to-day workings of the business during the transition.  We've been lucky to have a bee store in Snohomish for what seems like forever so it's nice to see the store continue operation. 

Jean has plans at some point to do some extensive traveling and enjoy her 'retirement'.  Who knows, the next time you find yourself behind a slow moving RV it'll be Jean behind the wheel off to tour the country!  If you stop by the shop, please thank Jean for all her service to the Beekeeping community over the years and wish Jim and Rachel the best of luck going forward.

March Minutes
NWDBA has $238.52 in Checking and $827.92 in Savings.  Our potluck is tentatively scheduled for July 16th at Flowing Lake Park.  More details next month on the specific date.

Tim gave a very nice talk about requeening and package bee installation.  When requeening he recommended squishing the old queen against the queen cage of the new queen.  He also likes to remove the worker bees from the queen cage to help with acceptance.  It is best to insert the cage between frames in the middle of the brood area if possible, making sure the screen is not against the brood!

If you can't find the queen you can make a 5 frame split.  Find 2-3 frames with brood and a couple frames of honey and pollen.  Put the frames into a hive body on top of the old hive with a queen excluder or screened board between the two.  After 3-6 days the queen will be laying.  It's best not to disturb the hive other than to remove the queen cage.  After 3 weeks you can combine with the bottom hive using a newspaper barrier with some slits cut in it.  Little Nickel want ads are the perfect size for this!  90% of the time the upper queen will supersede the lower queen.

For package installation Tim likes to spray with sugar syrup and feed with an internal feeder for a strong colony and a top feeder otherwise.  To install the package, take out 4 frames and pour the bees into the empty space after rapping the box (be sure to hold the syrup can in!).   Then continue to dump, rap, and pour until all the bees have been removed from the package.  Use the left over syrup to augment what you are feeding them.  Insert the queen cage and wait 3-4 days.  If the bees are not nasty, open the cage and let her walk out, otherwise wait 3-4 more days.

March MInutes (cont'd)
There was continued discussion of an educational Ag booth.  A motion was made and carried to form a committee to pursue educational opportunities with the fair.  Stan Pallo volunteered to be chairman with Jim Ullman, Jerry Robnett, and Cindy White helping out. 

Some commercial beekeepers are reporting 60%-75% losses this year.  The primary cause is not known at this point in time.

March Beekeeping
Register your hives with the Department of Agriculture.  March 1 –15, open hive and check honey stores to be sure there are at least four combs of honey in the hive.  Feed syrup if there is less than two combs.  Clean the hive bottom board.  Mouse guards may be removed about mid month.  If colonies are 10 to 12 combs of bees, begin comb rotation – two or three combs with young brood and eggs to center of bottom box and empty combs to sides of brood (next to honey) in second box.  If colony is 12 to 15 frames of bees with four to six combs of brood, add the first honey super over a queen excluder.

April Beekeeping
Continue comb rotation.    Make sure there are enough honey stores or feed your bees.  Hives should have at least one full frame of pollen and several frames of honey.  If hive is light, feed the bees a 1:1 sugar syrup mixture.  Feed pollen supplement if necessary.  If the colony is continuing to build up add a honey super every three weeks until June 1 (= 3 deeps or equivalent in westerns = 4-5 deeps of bees by June 1).