Meeting Monday, 6/24/13 By: Donna Victors

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1 Officers Present: Steve and Donna Victors Tom Elliott Ty Tobias Meeting Monday, 6/24/13 By: Donna Victors Treasurer s Report: We have $ in our treasury. We have no bills. It was moved to pay no bills this month and several people seconded it. unanimously. Correspondence: We received the following s: From: Voeller, Molly - NRCS, Palmer, AK [mailto:molly.voeller@ak.usda.gov] Sent: Wednesday, June 19, :35 AM To: victors@mtaonline.net Subject: NRCS at the State Fair, Beeswax Candles It passed Hello, The USDA - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) usually has a booth near the bee keeping information in the Ag barn at the Palmer, Alaska State Fair. This year, NRCS is planning on focusing on pollinators and offering the opportunity for youth to make (for free) small beeswax candles by rolling beeswax sheets. I want to be sure we are not stepping on the toes of the Southcentral Alaska Beekeepers Association by displaying information on pollinators and offering activities to do with beeswax. I am more than open to partnering and sharing information and resources. Please let me know any concerns you have or if you would like to partner this year at the State Fair. Sincerely, Molly Voeller Alaska Public Affairs USDA - Natural Resources Conservation Service (907) molly.voeller@ak.usda.gov Dan Bale said to say, That s great, let them roll some candles and then send them our way. The group didn t see a conflict with this in any way. From: Glenda Smith [mailto:glenda.smith@matsugov.us] Sent: Tuesday, June 11, :10 PM

2 To: Subject: Ag appreciation day 2013 Mr. Victor, I obtained your name and from Alex Strawn after I asked if he would be able to participate in Ag appreciation day. I'm working with a group from UAF to help with this event. Ag appreciation day is Thursday, August 8, 12 noon to 6 PM at Palmer Center for Sustainable Living (previously "the agricultural and forestry experimental station") There is no cost to have a booth or do have a demonstration. If you are interested, please let me know and I will scan a presentation/vendor information form to you. Thanks, Glenda Glenda Smith Real Property Analyst Land and Resource Management Matanuska-Susitna Borough (phone) (facsimile) ************************************ From: joan tov [mailto:joanetov@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, June 24, :34 PM To: victors@mtaonline.net Subject: SABA meeting & community partners for education Hello Victors, Alice Wegh told me about your monthly meetings. I work with a private school, The Learning Farm, as a marketing and curriculum consultant. During summer we have prek camps and classes for youth 5-11 years, plus birthday parties and other special events. Each level includes two sessions per day ( a morning and afternoon). We are scheduling a word of the day and a theme of the week to cover various farming topics. Would someone from your group be willing to come to talk about the role of bees in pollination to continue the "be fruitful and multiply" part of plant cycles? We'd like a few words on the history of bees and insects in pollination in North America and Alaska and how the colony collapse syndrome is affecting agriculture/farming in America...on an elementary level, of course. This week or next would work for us, to coordinate with one of your beekeepers' schedule. If it is a commercial business and for the Bee Keepers Association, we will provide promotional value. At the end of each week a hand out goes home with each student and those community partners assisting in this way are acknowledged with contact info. There is also a website on which you may be listed and if you have handouts, they are welcome to be distributed.

3 The summer camps and classes are small (about 10 per day for each level) and there are mentors and apprentices learning to be farmhands in addition. Morning sessions are 10-12noon and afternoon from 2-4pm. We will continue with an expanded curriculim in the fall and would be delighted to include the Alaska Bee Keepers Association and some of your participating members as part of our community partners in learning. Please have your interested party(s) contact me to coordinate a time. Thank you much. We look forward to hearing from you very soon. Thanks again. Regards, Joan Tovsen Representing The Learning Farm or joanetov@gmail.com Happy late National Pollinators Week (It was last week.) Old Business: No information on Wayne Vandry yet and whether or not he will be judging for us at the Fair. The group discussed about the difficulty of updating or reworking the website. Mike Fry had examined the html and said it was going to take a LOT of work. We bought a 10- year hosting with Go-Daddy about three years ago. Discussion followed. In an to Steve, Tang said she would be willing to rebuild the SABA website but that it would need to be moved to Yahoo as she is comfortable working with them. She would not charge SABA for the site rebuilding time, which could take up to 30 hours or so. She would like to ask for a minimal $20.00 monthly maintenance fee. After the site has been activated in Yahoo, the monthly fee should run around $7.99/mo. She would need to contact them for exact pricing, but she s expecting it would be approximately that with an additional $12.00 for the private registration fee. Hugo moved to transfer the account to Yahoo and to let Tang redo the website and to maintain it for the stated fees in the . Norm Trudell seconded. The group decided that paying her $20 a month and incurring the Yahoo hosting costs and writing off the Go-Daddy fees was better to do than to have a website that wasn t updated and that was difficult to work with. Passed unanimously. The group wished to thank Tang for volunteering to take on this project for us. Thank you, Tang! New Business: Steve asked if people had queen cells yet? A few raised hands. Most people had only cups. The swarm list was passed around for signing up to catch a swarm. This list will be posted on the website under SWARM RESPONSE.

4 If you are interested in being on the SWARM LIST, please contact Donna at or Triggers of a honey flow (which is at least two weeks late) are good pure white wax on foundation and top bars, excited activity in front of the hive, it smells good around the hive, white Dutch clover is in bloom and wild roses are in bloom. When is it a good time to put honey supers on? When the bees have drawn out 7-8 out of 10 frames, put on another box. Put on another box if they are building burr comb. Be sure they have capped honey stores above the brood. Mike Fry asked about the timing of flower blooms as he has fireweed blooming but others that are normally blooming aren t. Seems backwards this year. The group replied that it is hard to tell especially with the weird cold spring. Question: Where do you limit the queen? Discussion on what people do with the queen and the use of excluders. Many let her go wherever she wants and use an excluder three weeks before harvest to keep her in one box so that by harvest tie all the rest of the boxes may be extracted with no bees hatching out in the house. The newly hatched bees become nurse bees for two to three weeks after hatching. Normally, by the end of June or the 4 th of July, people cage the queen or limit her movement to one box. Caging the queen is a good strategy if you have no intention of overwintering as you can put away good clean equipment for winter storage. You need to learn to find the queen! The red marks make a difference in finding her! The yellow marks are the worst in ease in finding the queen amongst all that yellow pollen. By design, the bees want to lay bees in the bottom part of the hive and store honey above as they move up in the winter. Realize that bees don t really like excluders. They must have a reason to go through it. Otherwise, they ll treat it like a roof. Discussion on double queen hives compared to singles with the cold start this year. Feeding longer on bare foundation has been one difference. If the bees have plenty of feed, stop feeding. Otherwise, you ll have sugar mixed in with your honey. Bees are finding nectars now. Which breed is doing better? This is more dependent on the quality of the queen instead of race of bee. There s more variation between queens instead of type.

5 Tom s Swarm Control article from Bee Culture: (You ll have to look the article up online as I am unable to copy and paste it into our newsletter.) In the first few days of July, find the queen, pull her along with two frames of brood. Put these in a new box along with feed. You will have to continually feed these bees as there will be no forager bees. The rest of the hive is still loaded with bees; they ll keep going strong while they raise up a new queen. Return in four days and take out the capped queen cells so the bees only use the fresh eggs. Otherwise, these capped queen cells won t produce a strong queen due to not being fed royal jelly right away. At the end of July/first of August, he extracts all the honey. There are no eggs or brood in the hive, and all the equipment is clean for winter storage. The new nuc hive is ready for overwintering. There are no welfare bees. This process also is a natural mite control and disease control since there s been a break in the brood cycle. Tom also explained about his Weber queens and how they need to be introduced slowly to the hive as they are part Russian. They have a different pheromone than the Italian and Carniolan; the bees have a more difficult time accepting these new queens. He said he pulls out he new virgin queen and combines them with the Vermont queen to winter over or he may overwinter two hives for the price of one. Tom said he d be happy to answer questions. His is beeman@gci.net; his number is Discussion on Monsanto developing an inoculation to counter CCD. AIPV is really not the cause of CCD. IAPV may add to it, but it s a combination of Nosema, factors of varroa mites, and pesticides. Has anyone experienced problems with CCD? Joe Dunham had problems five years ago. He had three different suppliers, and he had one yard have the collapse whereas the yard next to it was fine. The bad yard was within foraging circle of the others. Who knows? In short, if we had a colony collapse here, we wouldn t really know as most of us don t have enough hives to judge that. There was a question of whether or not Round-Up was an issue for bees. If your neighbor is upwind and using a mosquito fogger without warning you, put a sprinkler on your hive(s.) This keeps them from flying. (This technique also postpones a swarm, but you still have to deal with the overcrowding issue when you shut off the water.) Pesticides WILL kill bees. The bees may come to drink the wet Round-Up. It is best applied in the evening when the bees are not flying. What is the schedule for a meeting to talk about overwintering? The August meeting that was voted to have will be the time we will discuss more about winter preparations. Steve was asked about his conex availability for overwintering. He has space available. His survival rate has been 75-85%. The long winter made the difference this year.

6 Chugach Arts Council book came out and Deana Tanguay said it was really cute and had some fun stuff in it. $3 for digital and $11 for paper copy of The Art of Pollination. Deana said it s worth checking out. NEEDED: A person who is interested in being our librarian for our library of two books (so far.) For Urban Beekeepers: I am a graduate student in Alaska Pacific University s Outdoor and Environmental Education Program. I am also a first year beekeeper and SABA member. I am doing my graduate thesis research on the urban backyard beekeepers. If you know of any beekeepers in any urban Alaskan community that would be interested in being interviewed I would appreciate you making my contact information available for them. I am willing to provide an incentive for their time. Thank you, Kimberly Giroux (907) phone or text PO Box Chugiak, Alaska kgiroux@alaskapacific.edu SNACKS If you are interested in helping to make or bring snacks for the bee meetings, just bring some in or volunteer at the meeting to be responsible for the next meeting s snacks. The Club will reimburse expenditures. A family volunteered to make the snacks for the July meeting. STILL UNCLAIMED Two items were left behind the beginning beekeepers class in March at the VFW Hall & are still unclaimed. Course Outline / Schedule on the back table where the refreshments were. Notes on front and back of packet in black ink. On the left front pillar, The Beekeeper s Handbook, 4th Edition. Please call Donna at Website UPDATE: Our website has moved and has a better name! Member Tang Johnston has set up our new club website onto Yahoo. Check out Please send your feedback to her along with any suggestions or tweaking that may need to be done. akwebmaster2@yahoo.com

7 Did you know we have a Facebook page? =ts is the page that member Jo Anne Peyton set up for our club. She has several posts and photos on the page. LIKE the page! Thank you, Tang and Jo Anne, for your efforts in improving our club and increasing our visibility on the internet!