buzzwords Upcoming Meetings

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buzzwords http://www.barnstablebeekeepers.org September 2017 Upcoming Meetings MEETING DATE: Tuesday, September 12 th Note the change in location from usual meetings!

BCBA members traveled out of New England to Ithaca, NY for the Eastern Apiculture Society conference at Cornell University. It was the best of the best! Why?

1 buzzwords September 2017 Upcoming Meetings MEETING DATE: Tuesday, September 12 th Note the change in location from usual meetings! Click here to sign up for the Seeley talk Dennis Yarmouth High School - Auditorium 210 Station Avenue, South Yarmouth, MA TOM SEELEY OF ITHACA Thinking back to the summer of 2002, a number of BCBA members traveled out of New England to Ithaca, NY for the Eastern Apiculture Society conference at Cornell University. It was the best of the best! Why? Not because of the swarm of well-known speakers from across the country, but because it was being held in the fields and the labs of Tom Seeley, PhD. Just to see the experimental hives of various colors spread across the apiary was a treat but to traipse through the fields with a tethered weather balloon with queen pheromone attached in search for the drone congregating area was fascinating. And we found it!! But the icing on the cake or maybe honey in the comb was the afternoon session in Dr. Seeley s little building which housed a number of observation hives. You have watched the bees return with pollen and perform their waggle dance, right? Well, we not only witnessed the dance, but with stop watches, we timed the dance and with compasses we were able to learn the direction where they had found their food. With these readings, we were able to plot on a map the exact (or pretty close) location of the food that the foragers were bringing in. It was the high light of the conference in my book and only made possible through the efforts and dedication of Dr. Seeley. A well-known author, international speaker, Barnstable County is very fortunate to be able to secure him as a speaker for the evening. He has some pretty interesting stuff for us during our September meeting so hope you can make it. Claire Desilets

2 HIVE OPENING FOR SEPTEMBER Saturday, September 16th 9 am weather permitting - 10 am East Falmouth As fall settles in, we need to think winter preparation. Most critical are the stores in the hive. Feeding might be necessary and there are a few different ways to feed both liquid and solid. Also, your varroa levels should be very low at this time. Two or less per 100 is ideal. We will be participating in the nationwide first ever Mite-a-thon. Stop by one of the 4 locations with your protective equipment and let s discuss the health of our hives. All members are welcome to attend any of the locations. Please remember this is a hands-on event and protective equipment is required. DID YOU KNOW? We knew flowering plants and honey bees co-evolved, but this shows how their life strategies are much more interconnected than anyone guessed. John Portnoy /science/honeybeesqueens.html?smprod=nytcoreipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share TICK SEASON SO DRESS APPROPRIATELY!! BARNSTABLE - Cape Cod Organic Farm, 3675 Route 6A. Proceed to the top of the hill and bear right in front of the office buildings, head toward the big barn watching for BEE signs. (Claire and Lynn) BREWSTER 869 Route 6A at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. Park in lot across from the museum. (George Muhlebach, gmuhlebach@comcast.net) EAST FALMOUTH Soares Nursery, 1021 Sandwich Road, Hatchville located 0ne-half mile from intersection of Route 151 and Sandwich Road. Drive between two greenhouses and park behind, not in the customer lot. (Marte Ayers, mfoura32@aol.com.) WELLFLEET Narrowland Farm. From the south take Route 6 into Wellfleet, past all the turnoffs for Wellfleet Center/Harbor. Opposite Moby Dick Restaurant, turn right onto Gull Pond Road. Travel one-half mile, take left onto Chris Drive. Bear right at top of hill onto Mayflower Drive. About 200 meters at bottom of hill take right onto dirt/gravel road Narrowland Road (homemade sign). Second house on left just before you hit the power lines. Street number is 60. (John Portnoy, jp.wellfleet@gmail.com). Check out our club s Facebook page

3 From the Board The Beekeepers Ball was a great success last year. By all accounts, everyone had a great time. So many restaurants made a commitment to help out last year and provided such delicious food. Come taste the wonderful delights including the special Honey Saison brewed specially by Cape Cod Beer. Pain d Avignon will be providing baked goodness! Both establishments are using honey collected by Cape Cod bees! Registration is open! We ve kept prices the same this year, however, adults must register BEFORE September 25 th to get the same rate. Click this link or scan the QR code above with your mobile device to visit the Barnstable Beekeepers Ball Facebook page for updates. Please consider donating time, money, honey to make this event a success. Are you a good sales person? We need volunteers to help sell raffle tickets! We ve got stuff from Staples, The Ocean Club, Mike s Roast Beef, Bobby Byrnes, Black Pearl Tattoo Studio, and of course, the Weber Spirit 210 gas grill from Home Depot and more! We re going to need a lot of help so everyone gets enough tickets for their prizes! We also have special donations from the alt rock band Royal Teeth and Island Recording artists American Authors! You may remember Royal Teeth from their guest appearance on American Idol. American Authors who were founded at Berklee School of Music are perhaps best known

for their Billboard Hot 100 single Best Day of My Life. Don t forget, you can pay your 2018 dues and purchase your 2018 calendar with your registration. We have the Pairpoint sun catcher as well!

4 for their Billboard Hot 100 single Best Day of My Life. Don t forget, you can pay your 2018 dues and purchase your 2018 calendar with your registration. We have the Pairpoint sun catcher as well! Call or Kim or klconcra@msn.com THANK YOU! Kim Concra Fall Feeding Our honey bee hives have enough challenges with increasing varroa mite counts as they enter the fall, but starvation should never be one of them. A quick heft of the hive from the bottom board either in the front or back of the hive should reveal a struggle to lift. With your fall inspection, you should see shrinking brood patterns with capped honey filling in the outside edges. All frames in the top deep should be drawn out with full cells for filling with pollen and nectar or sugar syrup. No foundation should be left as it will have no insulating value or food for the winter. Move those frames to the lower deep for spring use. Although clethera has passed, goldenrod and asters are blooming on the upper Cape with Forage What's really the point of wasps? full loads of pollen coming into the hive. Best to not count on those empty frames getting filled and start feeding 2:1 sugar syrup until they will take no more of mid-october arrives. Pollen patties can also be fed if there is a need in your area. Just be careful if you have any small hive beetle as they will multiply rapidly in the patty. Small pieces at a time is best. It is critical at this time that your varroa counts are 2 or less per 100 bees or your hive has little chance of survival. A sugar shake or alcohol wash is quick and easy and will give you a true answer as how best to go forward. It is not too late to treat with Mite Away Quick Strips, Apiguard or Hop Guard II if needed. Although the honey harvest did not exceed expectation this

season, the hives that I have inspected or mentored are looking really healthy as cooler weather approaches. So hoping they remain to this degree til next April!

We are contacting you again with the hopes that you will join us in a National effort to monitor for Varroa mites.

5 season, the hives that I have inspected or mentored are looking really healthy as cooler weather approaches. So hoping they remain to this degree til next April!! Claire Desilets Thank you all again for participating in our Annual Loss and Management Survey! We are contacting you again with the hopes that you will join us in a National effort to monitor for Varroa mites. The Bee Informed Partnership is proud to be a supporter of the first annual Mite-A-Thon that will take place Saturday, September 9 to Saturday, September 16, 2017 and we invite you to participate! The Mite-A-Thon is a national effort to collect mite infestation data and to visualize varroa infestations in honey bee colonies across North America within a one week window. All beekeepers will be asked to participate, creating a rich distribution of sampling sites in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Their varroa monitoring data will be uploaded to You will be able to see Varroa levels in your region on this dynamic site! Click on it frequently to see the heat maps and view infestation levels during this critical beekeeping month. CONSIDER JOINING THE MASSACHUSETTS BEEKEEPING ASSOCIATION For more information on the event and other statewide happenings, you can download the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association brochure here. OBJECTIVE: 1) Raise awareness about honey bee colony varroa infestations in North America through effective monitoring methods. 2) Management strategies will be made available for discussion within bee organizations utilizing Mite-A-Thon partner developed information and outreach materials. PARTICIPANTS: All beekeepers are welcome to participate we need bee associations to help lead this effort! WHAT YOU NEED TO DO: 1. Encourage your members to participate in September, through meetings, newsletters, s, social media etc Teach new beekeepers how to monitor for mites in August Help your members prepare their monitoring materials.

wash) and then enter data, including location, total number of hives, number of hives tested, local habitat, and the number of Varroa mites counted from each hive.

6 4. Support your members in making sure they are able to monitor mites effectively and report their data. DATA COLLECTION: Participants will monitor the level of mites (number of mites per 100 bees) using a standardized protocol utilizing two common methods of assessment (powdered sugar roll or alcohol wash) and then enter data, including location, total number of hives, number of hives tested, local habitat, and the number of Varroa mites counted from each hive. The published information will not identify individual participants. COST: There is no cost. You can create your own test materials or kits can be purchased online. Take Me to the Water aids bees digestion and metabolism. Bees bring water into the hive as needed. Because bees rarely store water, it is important that they have a ready available supply on hand. It serves several purposes. Foragers gather water and transfer it to the in-hive workers, who use it to cool the hive when needed and help manage the humidity. Nurse bees consume water, along with pollen and nectar, in order to produce the jelly that is used to feed larvae. In the winter, bees use water to dissolve crystallized honey so they can access it as food. As in humans, animals, and other organisms, water also Bees gather water from plants, puddles, ponds, bird baths, and even swimming pools. They seem to prefer dirty water over clean water, possibly because of the additional minerals it provides and the scent making it easier to locate when they return. When providing a water source, it s important that it isn t so deep that that they drown. Fill a shallow pan, bowl, Frisbee, or bird bath with rocks, twigs, marbles, or corks so the bees have somewhere to land and perch while they drink. Water feeders can be installed at the front of the hive via a mason jar and wooden ledge. Providing a water source in your yard not only helps the bees, birds and other animals enjoy it as well. Fill up a dish, sit back and enjoy another place to watch the amazing creatures at work!

7 Maria Cashdollar CAPE BEE UPDATE For those of you not familiar with our program, Cape Bee is a group of club members that meet weekly and manage an apiary full of hives and nucleus colonies. It all began back in the spring of 2010 when we wrote and were awarded a sum of money from the Specialty Crop funding program supported by the USDA. Our goal, at that time was to teach members how to rear their own queens from strong overwintered, northern hardy hives. The program has evolved slowly over the years with many different directions tried, abandoned and rethought based on the needs of the club. In 2013, we were fortunate to be offered land at the former county jail site in Barnstable Village. We established a number of hives and from here, each season we manage and educate ourselves and members on best practices to keep our honey bee hives healthy. Several hive openings and workshops are held at this site each season for members. Hopefully, this September we will be holding a workshop here to show off our hives, their treatments and how best to prepare them for the Cape winters. In summary for 2017, our Cape Bee apiary has 13 full 10 frame hives, 2 mating nucs with new queens and 6 nucleus colonies housed in 8 frame double condo units. We were able to make and sell to members 5 nucleus colonies each with 5 frames of healthy bees and a new queen. Also, a few of us are attempting to learn how best to raise a few queens for sale all having been grafted and reared from strong over wintered colonies found either at the farm or in our own apiaries. Fifty-one virgin queens were sold this season to help spread the strong genes across the Cape. All of this was possible due to the dedication of a core group of 10 to 12 members that arrive early on a week day morning. There is an ongoing Sentinel monitoring program of 8 of our hives where samples are taken on a monthly basis and sent on to the University of Maryland. These specimens are being tested for the Varroa mite and Nosema, a gut disease. Attached are the latest results. And at some point, the Arnia scale hives (2) will be available for members to view the data on the internet. Bugs are still being worked out. Since our hives at the farm are not used for honey production, a different type of management is needed. They can easily swarm if they become honey bound or swarm if they become too crowded with brood. Thus, we are able to make and sell a few nucleus colonies each season helping to offset some of our expenses. Currently, our concern is the growing varroa mite count in some of the hives. To date, 2 have been treated with Mite Away Quick Strips or formic acid. We do use other IMP methods such as drone comb removal and did attempt to cage two queens for 2 weeks to break the brood cycle thus breaking the varroa mite cycle as there was less brood for the mite to multiply. We hope to continue this practice on a larger scale next season. So, if you have a chance and an hour or so when we next hold a hive opening, please stop by and visit with the Cape Bee folks and the bees you help support.

Please include the group that you did your talk to and how it went. Please submit your story to Joe McClure @joegetsmail@gmail.com.

8 Claire Desilets New Buzzwords Features At our recent Board of Directors meeting it was discussed to add a new section to our newsletter. Beginning in our October newsletter we are going to add 2 new features: Members that do talks or lectures to groups, could you submit to the newsletter a short narrative about the talk you did. Please include the group that you did your talk to and how it went. Please submit your story to Joe A section of Buy, Sell, Trade- we all have extra equipment laying around, and here is an opportunity to destash that equipment. You can now place an ad in the news letter. The rules are, you write the ad and the contact is directly between the parties, so please include how you would like to be contacted. Mike Smith 2018 Barnstable County Beekeepers Calendar Photo selection is almost complete! Sunderland will have the calendar in the next two weeks so we can unveil it at the Beekeepers Ball! Joe McClure

9 ROSE HIP JELLY The fruit of the Rosa Rugosa resemble tiny tomatoes, and anyone who has been near the shore you find them growing wild on the shifting dunes. The sweet, distinctly scented flowers are often used to make pot-pourri, but the hips, also called haws by some, are well-known for making tea or wine, or creating a jam or jelly. Rose hips are legendary for being high in Vitamin C, and there is no doubt in anyone s mind about the beneficial effects of vitamin C. In addition to C, rose hips also contain A, D, Iron and E - all wrapped up in the tart-sweet taste of these miniature fruits. 2 quarts Rose Hips (plus or minus) ½ Cup Lemon Juice ¼ teaspoon Butter 3 Cups Raw Sugar 1 Cup Honey Large orange 1 package Powdered Pectin + 1 tbsp + 1 tsp 6 cups of water 5 or 6 Eight-ounce canning jars and fresh lids Directions Rinse the rose hips. Cut off the tops and bottoms of the rose hips and discard. Place rose hips in a large pot. Add 6 cups of water to cover. Bring hips to a boil and stir constantly for 5 minutes before reducing heat to simmer. Cover and cook for 1 hour (more or less), until rose hips are soft and mushy. Stir occasionally so they do not stick to your pot. Mash the hips against the side of the pan as you stir. I also use a food mill to grind the pulp once it is soft, or you can use a potato masher, or just squish everything up as best you can with the back of a flat spoon. Strain through a spaghetti colander to get the large parts out and then set up a jelly bag, or a large very fine mesh strainer, or three layers of cheesecloth over a bowl or large pot. Transfer the liquid (or puree) into the jelly bag/strainer/cheesecloth. Let strain into the bowl for a minimum of one hour. Do not squeeze the jelly bag or cheesecloth to get more remaining juice out, it will make your jelly cloudy. Measure the juice. You will need 3 cups of juice for this recipe, so if you have less than 3 cups, add some boiling water to the jelly bag and allow more liquid to drain through. Place 3 cups of the rose hip juice in a large, non-reactive pot. Add the honey, lemon juice, chopped up orange rind and the chopped meat of the orange and the pectin. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly dissolving all of the pectin. Add the sugar, also stirring constantly until dissolves, then add the butter

10 Bring jelly to a rolling boil (one that you cannot reduce by stirring). The mixture will bubble up considerably. Boil for exactly one minute. Then remove from heat and pour off into sterilized canning jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace from the rim. Make sure rims are clean and sterilized tops are finger tight on the jars, then process in a Hot Water Bath for 10 minutes. Voila, a lovely bit of summer in a jar. Enjoy! Mike Smith

11 RESOURCES (accurate as of 1/17) The following officers and directors are a great resource to answer questions and requests for assistance. Officers President Michael D. Smith michaeldgetsmail@gmail.com Vice President Kayleigh Cronin kcrone@gmail.com Corresponding Secretary Claire Desilets beekeepr@gmail.com Recording Secretary Deborah Carmel deborahcarmel429@gmail.com Treasurer Lynn Heslinga lynneheslinga@gmail.com Directors Marthe Ayers mfoura32@aol.com Paul Lefebvre lefbvr@gmail.com John Beach john.a.beach@comcast.net Mary Anne Mann hummann@outlook.com Maria Cashdollar winter64@aol.com Joe McClure joegetsmail@gmail.com Todd Cashdollar thruheavenseyez@aol.com Andy Morris andymorris02553@gmail.com Melissa Caughey pcmc2000@msn.com Brian O'Donnell bjmdod98@gmail.com Kathy Clobridge clobridge@comcast.net Steven Pelletier steven@pelletiernet.com Kimberly Concra klconcra@msn.com Melissa Sanderson melissa.a.sanderson@gmail.com Peter B Cooper brpbc1@gmail.com Lisa Sheehy lisasheehy@msn.com Claire Desilets beekeepr@gmail.com Mark Simonitsch fishweirs@capecod.net Lynn Heslinga lynneheslinga@gmail.com Michael Smith michaeldgetsmail@gmail.com Mary Johnson mrj9922@msn.com Miguel Zamora zamorasmiguel@gmail.com

June Check out our club s Facebook page

June Check out our club s Facebook page buzzwords http://www.barnstablebeekeepers.org June 2017 Barnstable County Beekeepers Association June Meeting MEETING DATE: Tuesday, June 13th, 7:30 pm at the West Barnstable Community Building on Route