Beekeepers Guild of Southeast Virginia Bee Line... · 2017-11-17 · Program: Simple, Smart Beekeeping Speaker: Dr. Kirsten Traynor April Monthly Meeting Beekeepers Guild of Southeast

The Bee Line

Greetings Fellow Beekeepers,

Well, it’s officially Spring. You probably thought it came early since we had such a warm February. I was surprised to see the bees foraging early last month; a glimpse of the season to come. However, Mother Nature seemed to have picked a fight with Old Man Winter: the last day of winter brought us a brief snow shower, at least in Chesapeake. Thankfully, all that is past us and we can look forward to some nice warm days ahead. You may have noticed some dead bees in front of the hive that made the ultimate sacri-fice trying to keep the expanding brood warm during the recent cold snap; hopefully you did not lose an entire hive.

We need MENTORS!!! With the recent students eager to get started in beekeeping, we need your help. You do not have to be an entomology grad student to be an effective mentor; you only need to be a year ahead of your student. And nothing prohibits you from reaching out to your mentor when you are asked a question you cannot answer. That arrangement works out well because both of you benefit from the experience. Please consider giving the gift that keeps on giving – knowledge. Share what worked, what didn’t, and what you plan on trying in the future.

If you feel you need to freshen up on your beekeeping knowledge, please consider volunteering at one of our up-coming events. There are plenty of beekeepers with all experience levels present and it’s a great opportunity to ask them questions. It’s always interesting to hear some of the questions from the public too, especially from the little ones. Consider volunteering a few hours, and be sure to see the articles inside this issue. Remember, volunteering has its perks!

Thanks,

Nick

Words from the President

Meeting: Monday, April 10, 2017 at 7:00 PM

Location: Towne Hall, left wing of Towne Bank located at 137 Mt. Pleasant Rd.,

Chesapeake, VA 23322

Program: Simple, Smart Beekeeping

Speaker: Dr. Kirsten Traynor

April Monthly Meeting

Beekeepers Guild of Southeast Virginia April 2017

Volume 9, Issue 4

www.BeeKeepersGuild.org

Apiary Notes 2

Celebrate Agriculture Review

2

Officer Nominations 3

Beekeeper’s Garden 3

Gathering of the Guilds

4

Master Gardener Plant Sales

4

Swarm Boxes 5

National Colony Loss Survey

6

Queen Order 6

Hospitality Assistance 7

Dr. Kirsten Traynor 7

Dates to Remember 8

Swarm Bucket Workshop Review

8

Inside this issue:

President: Nick Delphia; Vice President: Rick Fisher; Treasurer: Cheryl Brown; Recording Secretary: Will Walker

Newsletter Editor and Webmaster: Pam Fisher | Deadline for the newsletter is the 20th of each month.

Nick Delphia, President

Beekeepers Guild of Southeast Virginia

Spring Queen

Order!

Limited number of

queen bees available

See page 6 of this

issue for more

information

Remove entrance reducers and mouse guards.

Feed any new splits, fresh caught swarms, and

light hives, especially if weather inhibits foraging.

Make sugar syrup in a 1:1 ratio (5 lbs. sugar to 10

cups water) at this time of year.

Replace 2 of 10 frames of old dark comb each year to

reduce disease and pesticide loads in the hive.

You should have your honey supers on already! A

queen excluder may be placed under the first honey

super of drawn comb.

Do NOT use medications in a colony with honey su-

pers for human consumption in place. The only ex-

ception is Mite Away Quick Strips (MAQS) which con-

tain the organic compound, formic acid, a naturally

occurring component of honey

Keep new nucs well fed and monitor closely for

overcrowding until able to transfer to full size

hives.

If installing package bees, DO NOT open the

hive for at least five days. After one week, check

queen cage & release the queen if the bees have not

done so already. Disturb the hive as little as possible

during the first two weeks while they settle into their

new home with the queen.

Make splits when you see drones in the bee yard to

expand your operation or replace winter losses.

Queen cells can be used to make a split and delay

swarming.

Install a bait hive with one frame of drawn comb in a

nearby tree to catch swarms.

April Apiary Notes for Coastal Virginia

Page 2 The Bee L ine Apr i l 2017

Celebrate Agriculture Festival Review

Market, it was a fun event with something

for everyone, including a farm animals and

a bounce house for the kids. Thank you to

all who participated and special thanks to

Mark Pennecke for bringing the bees. Be

sure to put this fun event on your calendar

for next year!

On Saturday, March

25th, the Guild par-

ticipated in the Cele-

brate Agriculture

Festival and Craft

Show at the Virginia

Beach Farmers Mar-

ket. Guild members

Rick and Lou Anne

Franklin, Mark and

Sandy Pennecke,

Amy Bone, Brian

Krause, Eileen Zapatka, Jon Wynne and

Dawn James set up a display and edu-

cated the public about bees - not only

honey bees, but also carpenter bees

which were buzzing around looking for a

mate and a place to nest. The Guild table

was swarmed with visitors learning how

honey gets from the hive to the bottle and

how everything in the hive can be used

including wax cappings and propolis. At-

tendees jostled for a chance to taste sam-

ples of delicious local honey and catch a

glimpse of the bees in their observation

hive. Thanks to the staff of the Farmers

Guild Officer Elections

The Beekeeper’s Garden in April

It’s time to start thinking about Guild offi-

cers for the 2017-2018 year. Please con-

sider nominating someone or running for

an office yourself.

The criteria for potential candidates are

outlined in our guild’s bylaws: “To be con-

sidered for any office, any candidate must

have attended seventy-five (75) percent of

the Guild meetings and have participated

in a minimum of ten (10) hours of Guild-

sanctioned events within the prior year.

Additionally any candidate for the office of

President must have served at least one

year in a prior officer position.”

A nominating committee will present a

written slate of officers to Guild members

at the May meeting and accept nomina-

tions from the floor.

The slate will be published in the Guild’s

newsletter, The Bee Line, in June and vot-

ing will occur as the first order of business

at the June membership meeting prior to

any educational program.

Serving as a Guild officer is a wonderful

opportunity to help both our Guild and your

fellow beekeepers!

Current (Ribes sanguineum), Flowering

Quince (Chaenomeles speciosa), For-

sythia, Gallberry (Ilex glabra), Ground Ivy

(Glechoma), Japanese Aucuba, Japanese

Pieris, Lamium, Lenten Rose (Helleborus),

Pansy, Primrose (Primula vulgaris), Lung-

wort (Pulmonaria), Redbud (Cercis ca-

nadesis), Rosemary, Salvia, Scabiosa,

Scotch Broom (Cytisus), Snowflake

(Leucojum), Spring Flowering Bulbs, Star

Magnolia (Magnolia stellata), Verbena,

Viburnum, Washington Hawthorn

(Crataegus phaenopyrum), Witch Alder

(Fothergilla), Winter Daphne (Daphne

odora), Winterhazel (Corylopsis)

Virginia fields are often abloom in spring with the wonderfully fragrant white or lavender flow-ers of garden escapee, Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronalis). A relative of mustard, Dame’s Rocket is a prolific self-seeder that thrives in full sun to part shade. Plants require little care once estab-lished and are very at-tractive to pollinators.

Spring has finally arrived but the recent

cold weather took a toll on some early

bloomers. Look for the following spring

bloomers in Coastal Virginia: Azalea,

Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophila), Barrenwort

(Epimedium), Bachelor Buttons

(Centaurea cyanus), Bay Laurel (Laurus

nobilis), Bradford Pear, Breath of Spring

a/k/a Winter Honeysuckle (Lonicera fra-

grantissima), Brunnera, Bugleweed

(Ajuga), Blueberries, (Vaccinium), Camel-

lia japonicas, Camel-

lia oleifera, Carolina

Allspice

(Calycanthus flo-

ridus), Carolina Jas-

mine (Gelsemium),

Chickweed, Chinese

Wisteria, Corn

Poppy, (Papaver

rhoeas), Corydalis,

Crabapple, Creeping

Phlox, Dame’s

Rocket (Hesperis

matronalis), Dande-

lion (Taraxacum),

Edgeworthia, Fiv-

eleaf Akebia (Akebia

quinata), Flowering

Cherry, Flowering

Page 3 The Bee L ine Apr i l 2017

Akebia quinata, also known as Chocolate Vine gets its name from the fragrance of its spring flowers. Don’t let the delicate appearance of this invasive vine fool you; it quickly forms a dense mat capable of smothering native trees and shrubs.

Scotch Broom (Cytisus), a

native of northern Africa and

parts of Europe, was intro-

duced into Virginia in the

1800s to feed domestic

sheep. By 1860, it was clas-

sified as invasive. This hardy

perennial gets its name from

the common use of making

brooms from its thin, ever-

green branches. Leaves are

small and barely noticeable

but the yellow or pink pea-

like flowers transform the

shrub into an arching foun-

tain of blossoms that change

color as they age. Happy in

full sun and poor soil, Scotch

Broom blossoms for over a

month each spring.

"Leadership is not

a position or a

title, it is action

and example.”

- Cory Booker.

mational booth at the Chesapeake Mas-

ter Gardener Plant Sale. Please sign up

in the members section of our website if

you can assist. The shifts are short and

we always have plenty of time to do a

little shopping!

Although we will not have a booth at the

Virginia Beach Master Gardeners plant

sale, their sale is not to be missed.

They will hold their sale at the Virginia

Beach Farmers Market, 3640 Dam Neck

Road, on Saturday, May 6th from 9 AM

to 3 PM and Sunday May 7th from 10

AM to 2 PM.

The Portsmouth Master Gardeners will

hold their spring plant sale in conjunc-

tion with their Open House on Saturday,

May 6th from 9 AM to 2 PM at their of-

fice located at 105 Utah Street, Ports-

mouth, VA 23701. Tour their display

gardens between educational demon-

strations.

Master Gardener Plant Sales

Is there anything that goes together as

well as gardening and beekeeping? The

two are so interrelated that most bee-

keepers become experts at plant identifi-

cation without ever realizing it. And

many gardeners take up beekeeping

just to improve their garden. So what

gladdens the heart of a beekeeper al-

most as much as a swarm call? A plant

sale! And especially a Master Gardener

Plant Sale where locally adapted plants

are offered at very reasonable prices.

The Chesapeake Master Gardener Plant

Sale will be Friday, April 29th from 8

AM to 6 PM and Saturday, April 30th

from 9 AM to Noon in front of the Great

Bridge Community Center at 212 Holt

Dr., Chesapeake

The sale will feature locally grown per-

ennials, annuals, trees, shrubs, herbs

and more. Expert advice is also avail-

able at the sale.

Our Beekeepers Guild will host an infor-

Page 4 The Bee L ine Apr i l 2017

Gathering of the Guilds By Brian Krause

Tidewater Knitting Guild of Virginia

Tidewater Turners

Tidewater Friends of Acoustic Music

Seaside Smockers

Tidewater Quilters Guild of Virginia

There really is something for everyone in

the family as the Red River Smokehouse

Food Truck will be serving up fine eats

and there will an Easter Egg hunt for the

kids. A special appearance by the Easter

Bunny is expected!

Admission to this event is free and in-

cludes a brief tour of the Francis Land

House. The Francis Land House is located

at 3131 Virginia Beach Boulevard, Virginia

Beach.

April is upon us and that means it is time

for “The Gathering of the Guilds.” The

Beekeepers Guild will once again partici-

pate in this event by sharing best bee-

keeping practices, educating the public

and selling honey products. The 26th an-

nual Gathering of the Guilds will take place

at the Francis Land House on Saturday,

April 8 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Visitors

will learn about traditional skills as guild

members from numerous groups demon-

strate their specialties to the public.

Additional participating guilds include:

Virginia Native Plant Society

Butterfly Society of Virginia

Back Bay Wildfowl Guild

Tidewater Basketry Guild

Swarm Boxes By Bettina Strobach

As we are getting

ready for swarm

season, I want to

share my experi-

ence. For the

past three years,

every spring I

load up my little

car with a swarm

bucket, a long pole, my suit, veil and

various other paraphernalia and wish

for that magical ball of bees clinging

to a branch, fence, picnic table, etc. I

keep my phone glued to my side in

hopes that I will receive that call. I will

go to almost any sighting in anticipa-

tion that the treasure lies there. This

has led me to cutouts that produced

nothing or dead bees, a call where all

I collected were the bees the previous

beekeeper left behind. Never did I

give up hope or get discouraged; my

freebees were out there and patience

would lead me to them.

Finally, last spring my brother kindly

passed a swarm call on to me. This

was the real deal! A branch I

should've been able to reach easily, a

fantastic homeowner that even helped

me cut the branch, and a swarm that

would fill two mediums! I had a few

things not in my favor: it was an un-

usually cool spring morning, I only

had 30 minutes to collect the bees

prior to going to work, and it was rain-

ing. Upon collecting the bees, my pole

snapped and the bees ended up in

the neighbor’s driveway. I will never

forget the look of horror in this won-

derful homeowner’s face. He called

me to save the bees, not to flatten

them. It had a happy ending though,

the rain kept them put but they were

extremely upset with me and I en-

dured 18 stings. I didn't care; there

was a beautiful mated queen among

them. They filled two buckets and I

drove them to my apiary where they

thrived and did extremely well.

Page 5 The Bee L ine Apr i l 2017

So as I am honing my swarm catching

skills and learning from my trials and

errors, I started wondering if there

was an easier way to catch these glo-

rious little creatures. In my research,

the topic of swarm boxes repeatedly

popped up. So I started to investigate.

How wonderful I thought, hanging a

box in a tree and letting the bees

come to me! The only fear I would

need to overcome was climbing up a

ladder to retrieve them. But hopefully

the ridiculous calamity of errors would

be behind me and I could still get

what I so wanted… more bees!

As in all things beekeeping, there are

200 different ways to create a swarm

box. You can take two nuc boxes,

clamp them together and provide a

roof and floor, you can take a regular

super and do the same, you can pur-

chase a swarm catching box from

many beekeeping companies or you

can get creative and just make some-

thing of your own. But where to start

with the dimensions? I stumbled upon

a wonderful article from the Cornell

University Apiary Studies program,

Bait Hives for Honey Bees by Thomas

D. Seeley, Roger A Morse, and Rich-

ard Nowogrodzki. Their dimensions

were odd, nothing that would hold a

frame, but supposedly they had re-

searched it and found it was a space

and cavity to which a swarm gravi-

tated.

So off I go. I find scrap pieces of

wood that happened to be the dimen-

sions to create this box. I wanted to

test different theories, so I also took

two of my more beat up supers and

also turned them into a swarm box.

After carefully assembling them, mak-

ing sure no light could go through,

and baiting them with either lemon-

grass oil or Swarm Commander, I

started searching for trees in which to

hang my glorious boxes, the

"preferred" hanging height being 15

feet up. I scattered them around town

and left a few on the property. I even

took one to a homeowner who had

bees trying to get in behind his chim-

ney in hopes that the lure would be

more tempting than his chimney.

To my utter amazement, out of the

five boxes I hung, I collected three

swarms!!! Which boxes worked you

ask - the ones I built using Cornell's

measurements. The swarms were

dramatically different in size, but I

didn't care, they came to me!

As we are preparing for swarm sea-

son, my boxes are hung and baited.

Now don't get me wrong, my swarm

bucket will make it back into my car,

my phone will remain by my side, and

I will still be driving with one eye star-

ing up into every tree. I wanted to

share my swarm box experience with

other beekeepers who would love to

get in on the action. Life is busy

enough, and if the bees will come to

you, hey I'm all for that!

Page 6 The Bee L ine Apr i l 2017

National Colony Loss/Management Survey

beekeepers see what actionable practices

are correlated with improving survivorship!

Some beekeepers may be contacted inde-

pendently by the National Agricultural Sta-

tistics Service (NASS) of the USDA to par-

ticipate in their first quarterly colony loss

survey. All beekeepers contacted by

NASS are encouraged to answer BOTH

BIP and NASS surveys.

If you have any questions or comments,

please contact us at

[email protected]

Beekeepers needed! Please participate

in the National Colony Loss Management

Survey organized by the Bee Informed

Partnership and sponsored by the National

Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).

Please go to the online survey

at https://beeinformed.org/participate/ and

complete the survey there. It will be live

from April 1st to April 30th. Please do not

complete the survey more than once.

The Colony Loss Survey has evolved from

the winter loss survey conducted 11 years

ago. Now summer losses are monitored

as well. The National Management Survey

is conducted annually in conjunction with

the Colony Loss Survey. The two surveys

are aimed at looking for relationships be-

tween colony losses and colony manage-

ment (including disease treatment strate-

gies, supplemental feeding, etc.) and/or

other factors that may influence colony

health (such as colony location, honey

production, and forage type).

Also available is the dynamic state map

located at

https://bip2.beeinformed.org/geo where

one can view state losses from all years of

the survey including annual, winter and

summer losses as well as the number of

participants and colony numbers for each

state. Dynamic management reports that

have resulted from previous years’ sur-

veys can now be found at

https://bip2.beeinformed.org/survey. This

exciting data management explorer lets

Guild Queen Order

The guild is participating in a group queen

bee order from Strachan Apiaries, produc-

ers of New World Carniolan (NWC)

queens. NWCs are renowned for their

gentleness, honey production and disease

resistance.

Marked queens are $28.50 each and will

arrive on four dates, April 16th, May 30th,

June 13 and June 27. If you would like to

order more than two or three queens,

please split your order among delivery

dates to allow others to participate. The

signup for queens is available in the mem-

ber’s section of the Guild’s web site.

“Now that we have

several years of

data, we are

beginning to look for

patterns across the

best performing

beekeepers in each

region to start to

understand what

combinations of

management

practices work best

at keeping colonies

alive.”

--Bee Informed

Partnership

Refreshment Assistance

Dr. Kirsten Traynor

Refreshment Request

We all enjoy the snacks at monthly meet-

ings and the fellowship they foster but

they don’t just happen. Gracious guild

members kindly take their time to make or

purchase refreshments to share with oth-

ers. Often it’s the same people month

after month supplying us all with tasty

treats.

If each member brought snacks just

once a year, we could all enjoy refresh-

ments at every meeting with very little

effort.

If you can help by bringing snacks or bev-

erages to share, we are most grateful. A

sign-up is located in the members section

of our web site. Homemade or store-

bought, we appreciate it all!

Refreshment Coordinator

The Guild is looking for assistance coordi-

nating the snacks for breaks at monthly

meetings. This could be one person or a

team of volunteers willing to take on the

role of organizing refreshments for our

group.

We are looking for somebody to bring the

paper products and water to each guild

monthly meeting and arrange the refresh-

ments brought by guild members prior to

the refreshment break.

If your special talents are organizational

and you find coordinating refreshments

for social events rewarding, please con-

sider volunteering by contacting guild

president, Nick Delphia at 757-536-1354

or [email protected].

the Medicinal Benefits of Honey and co-wrote the book Simple, Smart Beekeeping. She also manages a boutique organic api-ary producing top quality nucs and Mary-land-reared queens. Using the biology of the bee against the biology of the varroa mite, she keeps her colonies healthy with-out synthetic chemicals.

Dr. Traynor’s presentation will be Simple,

Smart Beekeeping, also the title of her

book. In German, there is a popular say-

ing “Wieso einfach, wenn auch um-

standig”, which means why take the sim-

ple route, when there is a complicated

one. As humans, we gravitate toward com-

plicated answers. Maybe we’re drawn to

complex solutions, because if it’s difficult

and we fail, it’s understandable and we

don’t feel bad. But beekeeping need not

be complicated, difficult or complex. Learn

to keep healthy hives in an easy, carefree

way so you enjoy your hives and feel con-

fident working your bees.

Join the Guild in welcoming Dr. Kirsten Traynor of Flickerwood Apiary as our guest speaker this month. In 2006-2007, Kirsten received a German Chancellor Fellowship and drove over 50,000 miles throughout Western Europe to study the differences between European and Ameri-can beekeeping. She reported her findings through 50+ published articles in American Bee Journal and other bee publications around the world.

Fascinated with the social complexity of a honey bee hive, she earned her PhD in biology from Arizona State University with Dr. Robert Page. While a grad student, she spent almost a year in Avignon, France in the lab of Dr. Yves Le Conte as a Fulbright Fellow. Dr. Traynor currently investigates how pesticides impact honey bee health in the lab of Dr. Dennis vanEngelsdorp and was just appointed editor of Bee World, the beekeeping magazine published by the International Bee Research Association. She is the au-thor of Two Million Blossoms: Discovering

Page 7 The Bee L ine Apr i l 2017

“Hearing her talk is

eye-opening.

I learned so much

and can’t wait to

apply it to my

hives.”

Swarm Bucket Workshop By Buddy Hoggard

Page 8 The Bee L ine Apr i l 2017

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April 2016

On March 11, 2017, at the

Chesapeake Agriculture

Trailer, Dennis Heidenthal

and Buddy Hoggard

teamed up to teach a

Swarm Bucket and Bee

Vac Workshop. 15 Guild

members built their own

swarm buckets and

learned how to use them.

Dennis and Buddy first

demonstrated building a

swarm bucket for the class

and then everyone built

their own with some assis-

tance from the class lead-

ers. Dennis and Buddy

explained different ways to

use the swarm buckets and

also demonstrated four

styles of bee vacuums for

class participants to exam-

ine and build for them-

selves.

Many great questions

came up and the class was

able to see the importance

of mentor relationships as

Dennis and Buddy continu-

ally referred to what their

mentors had taught

them. Dennis’ mentor is

Dave Kvello, who taught

the previous Swarm Bucket

Workshop. Buddy’s men-

tor is Bill Gregory, who has

been a continual source of

information to Buddy and

his wife, Geri, since 2014.

Hopefully those in atten-

dance will be able to res-

cue many swarms through

the coming years thanks to

the workshop. And thank

you to the mentors who

took the time to guide nov-

ices to the point that they

could teach the workshop!

Dates to Remember

April 3 - Chesapeake 4-H Bee-

keeping Club Meeting

April 6- Board Meeting - Members

welcome!

April 8 - Gathering of the Guilds

April 10 - Guild Meeting

April 19- Virginia Beach 4-H

Beekeeping Club Meeting

April 28 & 29- Chesapeake

Master Gardener Plant Sale

May 4- Board Meeting - Members

welcome!