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August seemed to fly by this year with the
fair sneaking up on me again causing a rush to get fair entries in.
I managed to sneak in some not-quite-ready creamed honey this year due
to a late start on the creaming process. I hope everyone has had a
chance to enjoy the unusual summer weather this year.
Lawrence or Tim will be talking about
prophylactic treatment of honey bees at our September meeting (no
chemicals).
Dates to Remember
Oct 1: Deadline for WSBA 2003 Conference
Oct 14: NWDBA Meeting
Oct 18: Deadline for Regional Meeting signup
Oct 25: Regional Beekeepers Meeting
Nov 6-8: Hood River, Oregon Tri-state Convention.
August Meeting
At our August meeting Glenn Engel gave a
demonstration on the use of a polariscope for judging honey and talked
about how he prepares his honey for the Evergreen State Fair. The
polariscope is a device which shines polarized light thru a jar of honey
which causes items such as hair, lint, pollen, air bubbles, and bee
wings to show up very clearly.
Evergreen State Fair
Pigs were flying in the honey booth this year as
beekeepers gobbled up the awards. Best of Divison awards went to
the following folks with the Honey, Beeswax, and Frame division winners
also getting Best of Show with 100 point scores!
| Honey |
Glenn Engel |
| Beeswax |
Jean Bassett, Alan Jobe, Kelly and Lawrence
Oberholtzer, Andrew Olson, Helen Olson, Jessie Olson, Valerie
Schick, Dan Wisehart |
| Frame |
Larry Wright |
| Pollen |
Bev Ohlson |
| Chunk Honey |
Glenn Engel |
| Creamed Honey |
Andrew Olson |
| Mead |
Jean Bassett, Fred Gower |
Regional Beekeepers Meeting
This year's regional beekeeping meeting is hosted
by NWDBA this year. The meeting has been scheduled for October
25th
at the
Cottontree Inn/Best Western in Mt Vernon. A no host bar will be
open at 5:00 for the social hour with dinner following at 6:30 or 7:00
PM. More detailed location instructions will be in a future
newsletter. Auction items and door prize items are also requested.
Reports from last years meeting indicated that everyone involved had a
great time. Registrations
must be received by October 18. Check the
nwdba website for more information
on making payments via check or credit card. Please register early
if possible as we need a certain minimum attendance for our pricing and
to help determine our room size. |
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September Beekeeping
You may re-queen your colonies now if you did
not do so in the spring. Unite weak colonies. To winter successfully, each
colony must have the equivalent of ten fully capped frames of honey in the
second hive body plus honey arches in the lower hive body, and two or more deep
brood combs of pollen. If stores are insufficient, colonies should be fed a 2:1
sugar syrup mixture. Use top feeders to prevent robbing. Start feeding early
in the month, because the bees will not store the syrup and cap the cells when
the weather turns cool. Feed one gallon for each deep comb of needed stores.
The last gallon should contain Fumidil-B. Feed pollen supplement as needed.
Extract honey now and give the wet combs back to the bees to lick clean.
October Beekeeping
Continue to feed bees if necessary. Whether
bees need food or not, give one gallon of two-to-one sugar/water syrup
containing Fumidil-B.
Annual Honey Fest
The Woodinville
Farmers Market presents its Annual Honey Fest, Saturday, September 27th,
featuring locally produced varietal honeys from local beekeepers who are members
of the N.W. District Beekeepers Association of Snohomish.
As this features
NWDBA all members are welcome (and encouraged) to help out. For more info
on participation please contact Val at
(425) 397-0463.
Enjoy a bounty of
local honeybee products and observe the live honeybee observation hive and have
your questions answered by local experts. There will be beeswax candle rolling
for all to participate and plenty of honey sampling. Come to taste and delight
in the differences of natural raw varieties of blossom honeys from raspberry,
blackberry, fireweed, wildflower, cranberry, and even some unique dark amber
honey produced in the Autumn. There will also be honey comb, an assortment of
beeswax candles, lip balms, soaps, & creamed honey, Time to stock up now before
the market comes to a seasonal closure in mid October.
The Woodinville Farmers' Market is located at 13205 NE 175th (next to old City
Hall/Sorenson School)
in downtown Woodinville, and is open 9 a.m. To 4 p.m. every Saturday through
mid-October.
WSBA 2003 Conference
The
WSBA 2003 Conference will be a joint meeting with the Oregon State
Association November 6-8 at Hood River Oregon. This is a very beautiful
spot on the Columbia River. This is a well attended meeting and draws
many great speakers. You don't want to miss out on this
one. Registrations need to be by Oct. 1, 2003. Go to the following web
site for registration form and Agenda:
http://www.orsba.org/events.htm
See you at the Meeting!
Glenn |
