5.
REGISTRATION FOR Fall MEETING OCTOBER /, 2007
See inside for more information
Check us out we have made some changes
From Dave & Terry
We are working on the honey house Rules and Regulations with Lansing A meeting will be arranged in the near future.
We are still giving classes across Michigan and want to thank all the people that are helping by giving bee classes and promoting beekeeping. While we are on the subject, if you are looking for a source of great enjoyment for a little cash outlay and small amounts of effort-try NEWBEESThe Newbee is a name we have come to affectionately call the new beekeeper's. They are the ones who still have the time to count the bees in a blossom and are amazed at the work of these incredible little Creatures’s. The time spent teaching a Newbee is well worth the rewards. Think about it for yourself.
We would like to welcome Ronald and Suzanne Klein to our membership, they are the
100th new member this Year. Thanks to everyone.
On the CCD problem we are getting news on it and will share it with you as soon as we can get a clear and complete picture on the findings.
We need people to fill vacancies for officers in the fall Election, please contact Richard Leonard if Y0U would be interested in serving, or simply have your name added at the Annual Meeting in October.
We would also like to thank the Newspaper's across the state of Michigan for their coverage of the problems in the beekeeping industry. We appreciate their concern. We are still trying to work out all the bugs on the website. If you see a problem, please contact the webmaster of the website.
Honey Trails- We would like to thank John Dusek for coming to Our Summer Meeting and bringing plants for us to purchase. This project is an idea that other states are also following; there are service groups interested in planting Honey Trails (nectar producing plants for the honeybees). Les talk about this in our areas; it helps the beekeeper and beautifies the community.
6.
Bee
August, 2007
Roger Hoopingarner, Editor
Tales From The Lonesome
Hive
Aportion, maybe a significant portion, of the hive's nectar sources disappeared today - in a series of passes with my riding mower. It had been 18 days since the last mowing, and for the sake of suburban, neighborly goodwill I decided to mow my lawn. I could smell the nectar myself, and I chased a number of bees from the blossoms, with the mower, before they were cut off. I have some hope that with a little rain and some time the white Dutch clover (Trifolium repens) will re-bloom and I will give the bees back a little of what I took away today. I was not happy that I had to remove the clover blossoms today, but as I said, life in suburbia has its responsibilities, at least to some extent.
All of this is to bring us to resources for the bees, and what we can (should?) do for our bee colonies. When I first began to do serious research on honey bees I thought about the flight range of bees and how much area that covered; with a 3-mile radius from a hive it is more than 20,000 acres. I thought that any" control" over the nectar supply was hopeless. I was probably at least partially correct. However, Dr. George Ayres (Professor Emeritus of the Department of Entomology) showed me, and the world, that small plantings of the right plants could have a significant impact on the nectar income of a hive or apiary. Mostly, he was talking about plots of one acre or so, but in some cases even lesser plots were quite important. My point here is that even small amounts still count, especially those close to the hive-which is where a beekeeper can generally have an influence on the nectar plants.
Who was it that decided that Kentucky bluegrass was the preferred lawn cover? True Green or some English Duke? White Dutch clover takes less mowing, is more drought tolerant, has a pretty little flower, does not provide food for white grub larvae such as Japanese beetles, makes it own nitrogen and therefore is less polluting-not to mention the nectar that it supplies to our bees. Maybe the Michigan Beekeepers' Association should start up a campaign to promote more use of lawn clover with the selling point of less mowing.
Many years ago a beekeeping friend, Bill Staack, of down-river Wayne County, would fill a pocket of his pants with sweet clover seed. The pocket had a small hole in it and Bill would walk the roadsides near his apiaries until the pocket was empty. He did this for many years so I know he had to have influenced the roadside plant population near his bees with sweet clover plants.
There are many nectar plants that you can put in your flower gardens. Blue globe thistle provides a tremendous amount of nectar for a flower maybe the most for any plant. There are many other flowers that can be planted that give a small, but yet important, amount of nectar to the nearby hive (s). And if you can plant a significant amount of anise hyssop or mountain mint, stand back and watch the honey come In.
CCD
From my perspective there are a couple of things that have come out of the phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder. The first is that honey bees and beekeeping have certainly received a lot of press - most of it very good. It has made the general public much more aware of the need. For pollination and the role bees have in providing a substantial amount of food that we eat.
The second thing that appears to me is that at least the migratory beekeeping community has learned that a honey bee colony is a finely tuned system that can only be messed with in minor ways without causing serious trouble. Because of the requirement to fulfill pollination contracts many beekeepers have been putting all kinds of chemicals into their colonies in hopes of controlling varroa mites. It may be that finally the tight little system that the bees had was put into chaos from the effects of too many chemicals with maybe too many side effects.
I have been Out of beekeeping research for many years now so I have not been in the loop on the latest developments on CCD. It seems that some of the current thinking is that three things had to happen: 1) The bees were migratory, 2) the colonies were fed with high fructose corn syrup, and 3) the bees had been exposed to the insecticide imidacloprid. The latter insecticide has been banned in parts of Europe because of its disorientation effect on honey bees. That certainly would put the spotlight on it as the disappearance of the bee colonies could be called a "disorientation." I have also had at least a couple of reports of bad things in high-fructose corn syrup. Whether that was a bad batch, or two, or is commonplace I do not know.
My best guess is that somewhere down the road we will pass this crisis without ever knowing the real reason for losing about 600,000 colonies in just a few months. The beekeeping community has had similar incidents in previous years - again without ever knowing the cause the disorder. And this was before we started to put so many different chemicals into our colonies without regard to the interactions and ramifications of the effects or side effects.
I do suspect that the beekeeping research community needs some good virus research. This research needs to be more than just observational research. That is, we need to know more than just that a certain virus is present or absent. My understanding is that humans have viruses in their bodies most, if not all, the time - most the time without any serous consequences. So knowing that a virus is present, or not, is not very illuminating. However, virus research is costly and time consuming research. Maybe all the press on CCD will free up some money that will lead to good research programs on viruses in honey bees. So maybe there will be some good from all the bad.
From: Mike Hansen
Michigan Department of Agriculture
Following is a request from Diana Sammataro of the Tuscon USDA laboratory. I had a short e-mail conversation with Diana today and she offered the following information about this project to test HFCS received by Commercial Beekeepers. They are not interested in receiving samples from everyone since the CCD issues were concentrated in the larger operations. I suggested she might want to ask state inspectors to grab samples to help authenticate the study - to which she replied that this study is more of a check of what you received vs. what thecompanies submitted to USDA as representative of what they shipped.
If you are interested in participating, please reply to Diana Sammataro at her e-mail address offered listed later in this e-mailshe’dliketohearfromyou.Myinvolvement is complete by helping to make the connection. Thank you in advance for your Participation.
Mike Hansen, Michigan Department of Agriculture 269-428-2575
From Diana: 7/2/07
We are targeting large bee operations in light of the CCD, not from smaller operators. If you know of some commercial folks that would like to participate, I would like to hear from them. Most folks have already fed and won't get new syrup until fall, so some samples of what they have now might be interesting.
I think this request was coming from the Project Apis mellifera group, who is funding this particular initiative.
We have no expectations other than obtaining representative samples of what beekeepers bought and what the companies sent us for testing.
From: Diana Sammataro [mailto: Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 1 :58 PM
To: 'Christi Heintz'
Cc:
Subject: Samples of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) from beekeepers
Dear beekeepers: As part of our research on High Fructose Corn Syrup, we are asking if you would like to participate in our study. We need some samples of HFCS bee feed that you purchased to compare with the samples we obtained from the manufacturers. If you are interested, we will send you 5 small (labeled) vials for you to fill with the syrup. We ask that you provide us with samples of syrup when you receive it from the manufacturer and before you store it. You will be asked these questions about the syrup:
Please write down:
a. The name of manufacturer or where you purchased the HFCS feed (e.g.Mann Lake, Corn Products International, Cargill, Dadant etc.)
b. Date received:
c. How was it shipped? What type of delivery tank? e.g. metal, plastic, wood etc.
d. If metal, what type of metal tank? (stainless steel, aluminum, etc.)
e. Is the syrup sample you are sending what you are feeding directly to the bees?
Yes
No
If No, what are you mixing with it? e.g. water, sucrose etc.
How much do you add (1: 1 of water to the HFCS syrup?)
We will provide vials, the survey form and a pre-paid FedEx shipping label for returning the samples.
Thank you for you interest and help in our study.
Diana Sammataro, Blaise LeBlanc Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, Tucson AZ D. Sammataro, Ph.D.
Press Release
National Honey Board 11409 Business Park Circle Suite 210
Firestone, CO 80504 Phone: (303) 776-2337 Phone (800) 553-7162 Fax (303) 776-1177
New National Honey Board Officers Elected New Board Members Seated
Firestone, Colo. - New officers were elected at the National Honey Board's (NHB) recent meeting in Denver, CO, June 21-22.
The new NHB Chairman is Buddy Ashurst, EI Centro, CA. Ashurst has been a beekeeper for 47 years and owns Ashurst American Honey, which packs and imports honey.
NHB Vice-chairman is Clint Walker III. Walker is from Temple, TX, and owns and operates Walker Honey Company with his wife Janice.
Nancy Gamber-Olcott was elected as NHB Secretary/Treasurer. She is the President and CEO of Dutch Gold Honey, Inc. of Lancaster, PA.
Reg Wilbanks and Mark Mammen were elected to serve on the Executive Committee.
Wilbanks, Claxton, GA, is President of Wilbanks Apiaries, Inc. Mammen is Executive Vice President of the Sioux Honey Association.
Two new NHB members also were seated at the meeting: Zac Browning, Jamestown, ND, Producer Region Three; and Jim Rodenberg, Wolf Point, MT, Producer Region Two. Reseated for a second term was George Hansen, Colton, OR, Producer Region One.
NHB holds three board of directors meetings each year, generally in June, October and February. NHB's next meeting is scheduled for October 11-12 in Denver, CO.
NHB conducts research, advertising and promotion programs to help maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets for honey. These programs are funded by an assessment of one cent per pound on domestic and imported honey.
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(Photos available upon request.)
Day Lake Apiary
63249 Day Lake Rd.
Cassopolis, MI 49031
We had been selling honey at the Farmer's Market in Cassopolis, Michigan without and problems for four years. But, on June 16, 2007 everything changed for us an inspector from the State of Michigan Department of Agriculture Food and Dairy Division informed us we had to be licensed by the sate of Michigan and could no longer sell honey at the market. Well the first thing we did was panic how could we afford a honey processing house with only 5 hives? We called Tiny of Dadant Sons and picked his brain for some answerers. He gave us the basics of what we would need, also he told us to talk to Klein Sons we did and we went to work and this is what we did and the inspector was very pleased and it did not cost a arm and leg:
1. We had a room in the back of the garage we painted the ceiling and walls with white washable commercial paint (the room is separated by a door)
2.Sealed the floors with a commercial sealer
3.Make sure that the lights had shields on them
4.Hot and cold running water in the building(we put a separate 6 gallon hot water heater in the building) you may need to get your water tested check with the inspector
- -
7.Double-sinks fiberglass is permitted
8.Bottling table placed where water will not come in contact with honey
9.A small-compact refrigerate to store whipped honey
10.Trash can, soap, paper towels, sanitizer (2 caps of bleach to 5 gals of water)
11.Storage for cap scraper, bottle caps, labels, seals (which we bought at Wal-Mart for less than $14) storage shelves for jars, buckets and other items that is needed. Make sure supplies are not stored on the floor
12.Make sure that windows had screens on them to keep out insects and other pests
13.Make sure the extractor is clean we put ours on a stand which we built and painted with the non-toxic commercial paint.
14.No pesticides or chemicals of any kind should be stored in the bottling room
All of this has cost us around $1,500 it may cost more depending on what is needed on an individual basis. (Note we the work ourselves which saved of ton of money)
We wish to thank Tiny of Dadant and Mr. Mrs. Klein for their support and concern it is nice to know that some one cares for the small beekeeper may God bless you.
Thank You
Paul Mrozek and Sharron Parrish
Day Lake Apiary
Michigan Beekeepers’ Association. Fall Meeting Agenda.
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