REMINDERS:
The Superior Beekeeping Club will be having an Overwintering Session at our meeting on October 18th at the Chocolay Township Hall at 6 or 6:30. Check back closer to the date for details.
The club extraction here on the 22nd went well. Lots of beekeepers extracting their bees' summer bounty, exchanging bee talk, and sweating in the 85 - 90 degree shop - keeps the sweat and the honey flowing. Overall the crop this year was above average, but spotty. Kenny Kirkhoff and David & Sue Payant were the largest producers in the club this year. Congrats to them and to those without much... next year will be great!! I traveled to Escanaba on the 26th for an overwintering session with the local bee club. Great people there and many thanks to Jessica LaMarsh for keeping it all going and Bay College for hosting the event. We finished the evening with a quick auction to raise some money for the club. Thank-you to the very generous bidders! As I write this on the 28th, we are supposed to be below 32 degrees tonight and a few flurries are possible. Hope we don't just skip to winter...the leaves are just starting to turn. REMINDERS: 2 sugars to 1 water ratio for fall feeding. I feed till they don't take anymore or the weather takes a bad turn..end of October. I usually put them "to bed" the first week in November.
The Superior Beekeeping Club will be having an Overwintering Session at our meeting on October 18th at the Chocolay Township Hall at 6 or 6:30. Check back closer to the date for details.
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A quick reminder of the extraction tomorrow--schedule a slot with Michelle 906-250-2511.
The shop is at 90 degrees, feel free to drop off your frames/supers to warm up overnight. The outside temp was 65 this morning , now 51 and dropping..fall has arrived. *The Gathering of the North event went well. A group of people working to better connect with many of the skills of the past. Always a good experience to meet new people. Children's author David Marshall, wellness guide and wife Becky presented to the group. They spoke to the benefits of mushrooms for the health of the bees. Urban beekeepers Rich Wieske and Joan Mandell from Detroit spoke about the medicinal products of the hive. We were fortunate to have both couples as house guests--what a nice experience to talk and spend time with such interesting people. A big thanks to Ryan and Amber Iacovacci for all of their efforts to bring it about. My daughter Cassandra and my grand kids did a dip candle making demo--all went away with a dipped beeswax candle. Some went away with a new (for me) cloth dipped in beeswax to be used as a natural reusable "saran wrap". I will continue to experiment with this. ** 5.5" of rain yesterday--the bees have had several no fly days recently. They have been eating away at their honey stores. The next week looks like sunshine and in the 60's which should be a great goldenrod time for the bees---can't wait for that smell of goldenrod coming from the hives. *** Fall feeding should commence soon especially if your stored honey is low. I usually wait till I have pulled any honey to be taken and the weather starts to turn gloomy. Remember the 1 water to 2 sugar fall mixture ratio. **** I am going to experiment with feeding the bees a Reishi mushroom extract when feeding sugar water this fall. Hopefully it will boost their immune systems and help with virus issues brought on by mites. I will let you know next spring how it goes--maybe it will be another tool in our mite control efforts. ***** Up coming events: Sept. 22--extraction Oct. 18--Overwintering you hive Oct. 26&27 MBA fall convention in Clare, Michigan Nov. 29-- Club potluck and auction See the club page for details |
Joel LantzKeeper of bees. Archives
February 2022
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