March CCBA Meeting Spring?

Agenda Introduction: Keith Jardine – President (chief drone) Walt Talunas – Vice President Sharon Jardine – Secretary Jack McMichael – Treasurer

Agenda continued… Mentor Lead: Charlie Hall Vidya – thank you for the newsletter and cookies George D – Plant Guru Beeginner Lead – Michael Langer Swarm List Draw

Agenda continued.. Beeginner Session – ‘what to do’ with Michael Langer Bees through the seasons George Datto – Plants, seeds and trees Warren Graham – Installing a Package of bees

Hive Management through the seasons January Begin emergency feeding with frames of honey, sugar candy, or dry sugar, if necessary. Clean, paint, and repair equipment. Check apiary for vandalism, hive covers blown off. Order packages, nucleus hives, queens, if not done in December. Consider your mite and disease management program and order/construct the necessary materials (monitoring boards, screen bottom boards, drone foundation, chemicals, etc.).

February Check colonies for honey stores. Continue emergency feeding with frames of honey, sugar candy, or dry sugar, if necessary. Continue to prepare equip- ment for coming season. Clean up dead colonies.

March Continue emergency feeding, if necessary. Feed pollen supplements or substitutes, if needed. First quick inspection of brood nest, if weather permits. Check for and clean up dead colonies. Clean out entrances and bottom boards.

April Monitor colony stores, especially if weather is cold and wet. Inspect brood nest for laying queen, disease, etc. Introduce package bees on drawn combs. Requeen colonies with failing queens. Reverse brood chambers when weather moderates. Add supers to strong colonies at the time of maple or dandelion bloom. Unite weak colonies. Equalize strength of all colonies.

May Monitor colonies for queen cells. Control swarming. Add more supers as necessary (oversuper). Install late packages on foundation. Split strong colonies. Capture swarms. Cull and replace defective combs with full sheets of foundation. Begin implementing an IPM program for the control of mites.

June Continue to check for queen cells. Rear queens if you prefer your own stock. Check colonies for disease and monitor for mites. Remove comb honey supers when properly sealed. Provide plenty of super space. Control swarming. Capture swarms.

July Remove comb honey supers when properly sealed. Check for queen cells, especially in colonies used for queen rearing. Add sufficient super space (undersuper). Remove and extract early season honey crop. Freeze comb honey to prevent wax moth damage.

August Check colonies for disease and monitor/treat for mites. Remove and extract summer honey crop. Do not work bees unless necessary to avoid robbing. Add more supers if needed.

September Check colonies for disease and monitor/treat for mites. Provide supers for fall golden- rod and aster flows. Requeen colonies. Unite weak colonies.

October Prepare colonies for winter. Begin fall feeding with heavy syrup if needed. Unite weak colonies with stronger colonies. Put on entrance reducers to keep out mice. Extract fall honey crop.

November Finish handling honey crop. Order new equipment for coming season. Develop and implement your honey (and other hive products) marketing program, especially for the holiday season. End late-fall feeding.

December Repair and assemble hive equipment. Order packages, queen, nucs, if you know your needs.

Hive Sterilization It is time to get ready for spring and new honey bees by sterilizing disease contaminated hives and honey comb. The annual spring hive irradiation event will be held at Sterigenics located at 75 Tilbury Road, Salem, NJ This process kills nosema, EFB, chalk brood, and all other virus, bacteria, and pathogens that sicken our honey bees, shorten their lives, and weaken our colonies. We will be delivering hive equipment on Monday morning March 23 rd. Contact: Mark Antunes at

Hosting a hive I am at 2000 Telegraph Rd, I thought about having my own hive, but would like to try it this way first. Lauren

CCBA Survey The most popular areas from your survey were: How to start Nucleus Hives, Working with beeswax and making wax products, Preventing Swarming, Extracting and bottling your Honey, Hive checks like the Hive Crawl where we inspect colonies as a group, Beekeeping courses and ‘Tree and Seed mixes’.

Advanced Session We will be holding an event for advanced beekeepers to discuss queen rearing, finding drone congregation areas, tactics to prevent swarming, the new honey ‘Flow’ system, redesigning the nucleus hive for winter feeding and much more. Let me know if you would like to host an event on a Saturday morning.

Swarm Catching About 15 feet above the ground Well shaded, but highly visible Painted a dark shade Distance from source: not important, over 100 ft. better from source (Tom Seeley) Entrance 1,25 inches, shape of hole not important, but near floor and facing south Cavity volume 40 liters, 1.4 cubic feet Dry and snug, especially at the top Type of wood – not important, not new wood Smell of beeswax is an attractor Pheromone Lure

Lure Pheromone Lure Pheromone: 2 parts Citral 1 part Geroniol 1 Drop Lemon Oil >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Geranic acid (E)-3,7-Dimethyl-2,6-octadienoic acid (technical, mixture of isomers, which also contains nerolic acid) Nerolic acid (Z)-3,7-Dimethyl-2,6-octadienoic acid The recpie is: 1:1:1 mixture of citral:geraniol:nerolic + geranic acids as described previously (Schmidt and Thoenes, 1992) To rewrite so it is not confussing: The Schmidt Thoene recipe is: 1 part geranic acid (geranic + nerolic) 1 part citral 1 part geraniol

Trees and Plants Ordered for week of April 20 th DESCRIPTION AGE SZE No. Order PRICE TotPR CCBA 1 W RHUS TYPHINA " $1 2 W ROBINIA PSEUDOACAC ' $3 3 W TILIA CORDATA ' $2 4 W TILIA CORDATA ' $6