BEELINES May, 2006

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

 
     

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

Next Meeting: Tuesday May 9, 2006
The May meeting will include a report from Stan on State Fair plans as well as discussion of beekeeping topics of interest.

April Meeting
It was reported that the bad weather in Cal. has resulted in package bees being late for deliveries along with the possibility of poor queen breeding.
 
2006 State Convention is in Bellingham October 12-14
2007 State Convention is in Winthrop at the Sun Mountain Lodge October 18-20
 
Regional Meeting tentatively scheduled for October 26 which is a Thursday, at the Royal Fork restaurant in Mt. Vernon.  Dr. Steve Sheppard from WSU will be our guest speaker. 
 
The new research center test site in Mt. Vernon will focus on such traits as hygenic behaviour, gentleness, honey production and over-wintering under western Wa. conditions.  They also plan to do queen grafting for local use.  There is the possibility of a WSBA affiliated field day there next year.
 
Contact Brandon Clayton if you need queens.  They will be available mid-may.
Phone #  206-947-4483
 
Brandon noted that he received between $100.- $120. per hive rental fee this year.
 
 
  

April Meeting Cont'd

Average Pollination Rentals
1995   $29.60 
2002   $36.40
2003   $36.45
2004   $38.65
2005   $51.30
 
Some notes about the NWDBA fair booth.
 
Pete Wolcott will be in charge of formatting a brochure to use as a handout during the fair.  It will include addresses of local assoc.s, places to buy locally produced honey and related products, classes offered to learn beekeeping, where to purchases supplies, etc.  He asks that anyone wishing to have information included to please contact him as soon as possible.
  
phone # 206-367-4853
e-mail:
  
 
Trial run for setting up the live hive and screened tents tentatively scheduled for May 26th at the Evergreen State fairgrounds in Monroe.

May 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).

June Beekeeping
Blueberries are in bloom the first week; Blackberries in bloom the second week; Black Locust the last week.  If you use queen excluders, remove the queen excluder when there is one box (deep or western) mostly full of honey over the brood nest.  Continue to monitor brood nest crowding.  Bees sometimes store honey close to and in the brood nest causing crowding.  There should be one or two empty brood combs for the queen to lay in.
 
President - Jerry Robnett (360) 387-3693
Secretary: Glenn Engel (425) 334-0576
Editor: Glenn Engel (425) 334-0576		 Vice Pres.: Jim Tunnell (360) 568-7451 
Treasurer: John Bryant (425) 334-8575
Website: http://www.nwdba.org