MeckBee HoneyComb. President s Buzz: Bee Rodeo by Gerry Mack. Upcoming Events:

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1 MeckBee HoneyComb The monthly newsletter of the Mecklenburg County Beekeeper s Association June 2015 President s Buzz: Bee Rodeo by Gerry Mack Bee Trivia Night MeckBees held their annual Bee Trivia night at our May meeting. Eight teams of MeckBees answered Kris Daniels series of easy general knowledge bee questions. (What s the name of our MeckBee newsletter? How many wax glands has a 2-week old worker bee?) Libby Mack scored the answer sheets and kept dissension to a minimum. Team #4, COMBWRECKERS! won the competition congratulations to Mary Fabian. Alice Harrill, Matthew Banks, Ron Danise, Jodie Rierson, Mark Eckert and Tom Davidson. One member of each MeckBee team was then volunteered to participate in a Honey Bee. Libby pulled out the tough questions and quickly whittled the field down to our grand prize winner Tom Davidson of Team #4, COMBWRECKERS! Tom Davidson in Bee Culture Tom Davidson has taken his MeckBee trivia night success and gone professional check out his article in the June 2015 issue of Bee Culture, available online if you don t yet subscribe. Tom is a great bee storyteller and writes about tanging an absconding colony back to home. Thanks to Volunteers MeckBees have been getting a spring swarm of s from people who have gotten bees before being able to go to BeeSchool. They all plan to attend MeckBee School 2016 but need some practical help to keep their bees alive right now. I am happy to see that we have so far been able to connect these WannaBees with more experienced MeckBees. Thanks to all the MeckBees who have volunteered their time and help to keep these WannaBees on the right track. Upcoming Events: June 18th: Monthly Meeting June 20th: Solstice Party at Greg Clement s house. For those of you waiting for the last minute to RSVP Good News! it s time. You don t want to miss this annual event so please send your RSVP right now to: meckbeesrsvp@gmail.com. More details elsewhere in this newsletter. Honey Harvest Fable Competition The Little Red Hen fable would fit right in to our honey harvest process: Who will help me carry these supers asked the Little Red BeeKeeper. Not me answered Waxey Moth, but I need two fresh quarts. The best honey-adaptation of the fable received before the July MeckBee HoneyComb will get published to universal acclaim and will win a FABULOUS PRIZE! Submit your entry to meckbees@yahoo.com. HoneyComb 1 May 2015

2 Bees in the News. NASA is now in on the HoneyBee! Here's a link to the NASA site about honey Bees. It's a good resource for nectar sources by region, climate changes, hive weight protocols, and general beekeeping information. Our tax dollars at work! honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.htm August 22, 2015 will be the 6th annual National Honey Bee Day. Check out for information, news, events, how to get involved, bumper stickers, pins, T-shirts, labels and a history of the event. As a follow up to last month s article on pesticides in commercially sold plants, Rod Caverly submitted a link to this report on bee-toxic pesticides: system/storage/877/60/a/3130/gardeners_beware_report_ _final_updated.pdf Honey for Disabled Veterans The North Carolina State Beekeepers Association program Honey for Disabled American Veterans (HDAV) is accepting donations. Chapters will be recognized at the NCSBA Summer Meeting for their contributions to this program. This is an excellent program that the NCSBA uses to make donations to the DAV through all of our state chapters. Honey can be donated in any container, it will be used for direct sales and will be labeled with the Hon...ey for Disabled American Veterans. The alternative method of donation is monetary, for those who do not have honey to donate, that can be made directly to the Committee Chair and will soon have a link on the state website to make a monetary donation. 100% of all honey sales and 100% of all monetary donations will go directly to the DAV. Both honey donations and monetary donations can also be made at the chapter meetings and can be picked up. No honey donations is to small and no monetary donation is too small. Please let me know directly if there are any donations that the chapter or individuals would like to make. Additionally, there will be a table at the NCSBA Summer Meeting where honey and monetary donations can also be made. Thank you and please feel free to message here on the board with questions or private message if preferred. It s Harvest Time! We have the following equipment available to club members for extracting honey: * 9 Frame extractor (manual) * Uncapping tank * 5 gallon bottling bucket * Electric and non-electric uncapping knife * Uncapping roller * Capping scratcher You will need to use your own strainer. The charge is $5 per day to rent the equipment with 2 day minimum. To reserve the equipment: Go to the club s website and under the Members tab select Extractor Rental. If you have any questions contact George McAllister at gmcallister@outlook.com or call All the reservation instructions and calendar with available dates are on the website. HoneyComb 2 May 2015

3 Recipe Corner: Honey Tupelo Spritzer One of my favorite thirstquenchers in the spring and summer includes anything flavored with mint. Even after being cautioned by many master gardeners about how much mint would spread, I ignored their warnings and planted the mint directly in the ground. Now, half of my garden is covered in the vicious stuff. So, I make it a point to harvest handfuls of it every chance I get. The good news is that it makes for quiet a refreshing beverage. This recipe can be adapted with many tweaks depending on the crowd at hand, but the key ingredient is honey syrup. I like to make a big batch of this at the beginning of the season and keep it in my fridge for the summer. Honey syrup is made by diluting honey with an equal part warm water, until you are left with a thick simple syrup replacement. Honey Tupelo Spritzer Muddle mint in the bottom of a glass 1 part lime juice (or lemon) 1 part honey syrup (see above note!) 2 parts club soda or soda water (LaCroix Lime is my favorite!) Add ice and garnish with a lime For an adult version, add 1 part rum or vodka. Contributed by Erika Bowen Photos from Bee Trivia Night: HoneyComb 3 May 2015

4 Honey on Wales: Spring 2015 Honey Report By Andrew Thiessen Well, as of this morning (Sunday, June 7, 2015), spring honey is all in buckets & weighed. Here's how it all shakes out... Technically five hives produced spring honey. But one Runt Hive yielded only six capped frames (and they re mean gotta requeen them). The other four hives averaged 19 capped frames each. This is only half the picture, as the hives still each have 2-3 full, uncapped supers of spring honey--the runt hive has one super plus several frames full of uncapped honey. Once capped, I'll market all this as darker, fuller-flavored "Early-Summer" honey, as it will be partly Sourwood. I put all extracted supers back on the hives at Lake Lure yesterday (Saturday, June 6, 2015) & observed Sourwood trees with a few open flowers in my backyard up there. Air traffic in front of the hives prior to setting on extracted supers was intense...much more so than it has been the past few rainless weeks. You can clearly tell there is a new Sourwood nectar flow on. Now for the numbers! Total capped frames: 82 Total gross gear weight: 427 lbs of gear and honey (82 frames & 9 supers) Total net honey weight: lbs = lbs/gallon Average FULL bucket weight: lbs* (4 buckets averaging 4.66 gal. each, plus one with 23lbs of honey from the capping tub) Average hive yield: lbs (runt hive removed from this equation) Average yield per MEDIUM frame: 3 lbs honey (4-5 frames had only one side of honey, which slightly brought down this average) *It freaks me out a little to handle "lippin' full" buckets, so they're all filled to about 2" from the top. Producing honey at Lake Lure is fantastic, if a little wacky. I pulled an average runt hive excluded of 19 capped frames per hive of spring honey. The wacky thing is that there is more full, yet uncapped spring honey on each hive than capped. Including the capped & full, uncapped frames of spring honey, each hive yielded about 120 lbs of spring honey. I stick to my guns though, and only extract capped frames. I had to pull all capped honey now because Sourwood is starting to bloom & for marketing purposes I like to keep things separate, as much as I can. NOTE: If I was fancy like George (McAllister), I d pull all these full uncapped frames and dry them down in my bathroom with a dehumidifier. But I m just not that into it yet! Actually, I would do this now, but my dehumidifier is going full speed in my basement lumber-drying room. But that s a whole different story for another club! VERY special thanks to Jackie Helm & Jeff McNinch for helping me pull honey off hives last Monday, June 1, 2015! What a wonderful luxury to have help!!! HoneyComb 4 May 2015

5 You re Invited! When: Sat., June 20 from 11:30am until??? Where: Greg & Margie Clements' on Lake Norman Cherry Lane, Denver NC Who: MeckBee Club members & their families (must RSVP!) What: Water sports, lawn games, lunch, camaraderie, tall bee stories, bee legends, bee bragging... Learn: Ask 5 beekeepers and get 8 opinions about your hives Bring: Lawn chairs, pop-up shade canopies, sunblock, lawn games, swimwear, adult beverages (if desired) & a small dessert to share Don t forget to reserve the club s extraction equipment by contacting George McAllister! Food: Barbecue feast catered by Sylvia & Mike Kelly with all the fixin s! Must RSVP by June 13 to the below: meckbeesrsvp@gmail.com Subject: RSVP for MeckBee Picnic HoneyComb 5 May 2015

6 June in the Bee Yard by George McAllister June is the last full month of the nectar flow. Last year the nectar flow ending the first week of July. Make sure your bees are at their best as the season winds down. Libby Mack s article of what to do in June does a great job covering what you need to be doing. Here is what she wrote. June is the month for steady as she goes referring of course to all the worker bees. The honey flow is still on, so the beekeeper s job is to continue making room for all the incoming nectar. Inspecting the colony is fine to ensure the queen is still laying well, if you can find the energy to shift all those heavy supers. And when the supers are heavy it s time to start planning the honey extraction. time to think ahead to knocking back the varroa population and requeening your colonies, activities normally conducted in August in the Piedmont. The varroa populations have been steadily rising so you may find that August is too late to treat at least plan to test for varroa immediately after the supers come off. High mite loads lead to viruses and weakened colonies that cannot regroup in time for winter survival. Treating for mites in the heat of the summer is tricky, because the thymol and formic acid products are harder on the bees in high temperatures. Other options include pulling drone brood, powdered sugar and breaking the brood cycle; but none of these has been demonstrated to reliably knock back a high mite infestation. Whatever method you choose, now is the time to plan your attack. And finally, order those queens from your favorite supplier. By August they ll be in short supply. Buddy up with some fellow beekeepers to make the work go fast. Plan out how you re going to get the bees out, and keep them out, of the supers. Schedule a series of days so that you can remove the supers, extract the honey and then replace the supers. Lay in a supply of food grade buckets and honey jars. Don t forget to reserve the extracting equipment. Successful beekeeping is largely about thinking ahead, so June is also the HoneyComb 6 May 2015

7 Mecklenburg Count Beekeepers Association Membership Renewal PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY Name* : Address*: City*: State*: Zip*: County: Phone: *: Send Newsletter via: (thanks!) Paper Number of Hives: How long have you kept bees? (yrs) Would you like to get move involved with the Club? Yes No Today s Date Membership Year : 2015 County Association $5 I am a New Renewing Member State Association $15 I am a New Renewing Member TOTAL PAYMENT: ($20 total for County and State Association dues) * * * This information (name, mailing address & address) will be provided to all members of the Mecklenburg Beekeepers (and to members only no one else will receive this information from us). If you DO NOT want this information released to the membership, please opt out by initialing here. HoneyComb 7 May 2015

8 A Note from the Editor Please me with recipes, questions, pictures, article submissions, and anything else you d like to share with the club in the monthly newsletter. your submissions to: erikabowen@mac.com 2015 MCBA Officers President: Gerry Mack meckbees@yahoo.com Vice President: Kris Daniels Treasurer: Diana Smith Membership Secretary: Don Rierson Chaplain: Jimmy Odom jimmy.odom@gmail.com Webmaster: Kevin Freeman meckbees@gmail.com MCBA Newsletter 121 Hermitage Road Charlotte, NC HoneyComb 8 May 2015