Happy New Year!!  I hope that all of you (including our “girls) have a wonderful new year for 2010.  This cold spell has kept them inside for a while.  Hopefully, you were able to check their honey stores by simply picking up the back of the hive and tilting it forward.  It should weigh about 40#.  If not, sugar water will not be taken in, because they will not leave the brood or the warm ball that they are maintaining.  Bee candy is the most appropriate form of feeding for this time of year.  We will be making some of this at our January meeting.

There have been several recipes for making this candy.  I put one in our last news letter. However, Jim Primus added a change in his newsletter stating that: “Only use high fructose corn syrup specifically prepared for use on bees since corn syrup prepared for human consumption such as Karo syrup is probably manufactured by acid treatment which can generate products toxic to honey bees.  Still, I recommend avoiding either use of corn syrup because heating can generate HMF from the fructose in corn syrup. HMF is toxic to honey bees.”  Jim’s recipe calls for 5# of sugar, ¼ tsp. of vinegar per pound of sugar and 1 ½ cups of water.  Note that the less water = quicker, harder, drier, and more brittle candy.

 
Ideally, the candy should be placed on the top bars of the hive, but with the cold temps that we have been having.  I don’t doubt that if you place it over the hole of the inner cover, that they would not try to get it.  This would hold true if the swarm ball is just below the inner cover. I would not remove the inner cover with the temps below 55 degrees!

 
UPCOMING EVENTS
The 21st Annual Nashville Lawn and Garden show will be March 4th-7th.  NABA will have their booth there.  It will be from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Thursday to Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  They will be selling honey and giving information on beekeeping.  For more info go to: nashvillelawnandgardenshow.com

 
NABA’s Introductory Workshop will be held at the Ellington AG. Center in the Jones Auditorium.  The dates and times are: Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday, March 17th thru 19th.6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Saturday, March 20th from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The cost will be $10.00/ person or $20.00/family.

MULE DAY 2010
Mule Day will be upon us soon.  It will be April 8th thru April 11th. CABA has a booth that we will man from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. We will need volunteers for this event.  We will be selling honey and any other products in order to pay for our workshop.  This has always been a profitable event for us and it gives us an opportunity to gain new members and new beekeepers.  Our workshop will follow on a Saturday possibly April 17th or 24th.  Our normal April meeting is on April 4th.  Last year I think that we opted to forgo the meeting in April.  That will be a decision for the membership this year.  I am suggesting that we have our workshop as close to Mule Day as possible while the “excitement” is still fresh.  Our March and February meetings will hone in on these decisions as we get closer.  Don’t be afraid to volunteer, because you have already learned more than you realize.

I have always been interested in giving talks at local schools.  If your child has a group interested in beekeeping, please let me know.   Although April and May is a busy time for all of us, it does enable us to bring an “observation hive” to one of these classes.
I have had 10 people from Scotland visiting me for the holidays.  Needless to say, there has been a lot going on.  It is for this reason that I will not be putting a plant presentation in this newsletter.  I apologize for the brevity of this report.  Hopefully, you all will understand.  Happy New Year. 

 

2009 NEWSLETTERS

December 6, 2009
We have had several warm days in November and our bees have been out exercising. We have also had a couple of hard frosts. Now is the time to stop feeding sugar water or corn syrup to our friends. If you continue, it will encourage the queen to lay more brood in the upper box, and then when the cold really gets here, the hive will not be able to keep them warm as well. Bee candy or fondue should be the key; especially if your hive does not have enough honey stored. A quick test to see if they have enough is to lift the box from the rear and lean it forward. It should weigh about 40#. Do not go into the hive when the temperature is below 55 degrees, or when the bees are not out. You do not want to break up the “cluster”.
Bee candy or Fondue can be made fairly simply. Use the following:
5# sugar
16 oz. of corn syrup
1 ½ cups of water
1/8 tsp. of cream of tartar
Bring water to a boil in a medium pot. Turn off heat and add sugar and tartar while stirring constantly. When dissolved, bring water back to a boil and keep stirring. Use a candy thermometer and bring the mixture to 260-270 degrees. Don’t burn the sugar! Pour the mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. When cooled break into convenient-sized pieces and store in freezer sandwiched between two sheets of waxed paper. On a warm day (above 55 degrees), you can place the pieces on the top bars of the brood frames. Otherwise, put them on top of the inner cover. The bee candy should supplement the shortage of honey with promoting brood production. Another method is called “Queen Candy”, which essentially, is powdered sugar mixed with honey to the consistency of silly putty.

UPCOMING EVENTS
JANUARY 2010
Jim Garrison, president of TBA, and his wife, Sandra, will be coming to our meeting to demonstrate candle making. I know that some of you have been wondering what to do with all of those cappings.
FEBRUARY 2010
Don Lockhart has gotten Bill Mullins from Meridianville, AL to come and talk on “queen raising”. It should be a very informative lecture. We already have two queen raisers in our group: Jason Dodson and Don Lockhart. It is an excellent idea that we have more queens from our Middle Tennessee area. By doing this we will accomplish two things: 1. We will have more colonies that will be acclimated to our area. 2. We will have a stronger genetic selection without fear of AFB genetic intrusion.

MONTHLY PLANT FEATURE
Most of you have an herb garden or have always wanted one. There are two herbs that I have found to be very attractive to bees: Thyme and Rosemary.
Thymus vulgaris is a strongly flavored perennial herb with white, pink or purple flowers growing in clusters. The leaves are evergreen in most instances. It blooms from October to November, which would give our girls some fall pollen sources. The honey is aromatic, lemony, minty, strikingly sweet and acidic. The color is caramel to a dark golden amber.
Rosmarinus officinalis is a woody perennial with a distinctive camphor aroma. it has narrow ash colored leaves. The flowers vary in color from white, pink, purple or blue that bloom from April to June. The honey color is clear water white to a tinge of straw color. the taste has a fresh herbal and floral flavor with hints of lemon and pine.
Both of these herbs are hardy for our area and add a nice addition to your culinary efforts.

For those of you that did not get my e-mail, Robert (Bob) Maxwell passed away this past Sunday. He was past president of NABA (1981-1982) and a long standing member. Bob instigated a lot of non-chemical treatments for his bees, and was always willing to answer your questions. He was close friends with Joe Sides and Joe Dunn. Bob often times was called upon by Jim Primus to man a question and answer table at their meetings.
Bob was a member of the Allen county, Wilson County, North Tennessee, Kentucky State, and Tennessee Beekeepers Associations.
He was buried Dec 3rd at the middle Tennessee Military Cemetery in Pegram, TN.

IN THE NEWS
Don Lockhart is planning on working with Kevin Kent in Hattisburg, MS. this coming year. He will be learning more about queen raising. Before you know it, Don will be our queen source for Middle TN. You go, Don.
For those of you who are looking for Christmas ideas, Book-A-Million has offered TBA a discount of 20%. All you have to do is use their account # 8000007586. Although, their selection of bee books is limited, I did find a few that I have purchased as door prizes for today’s meeting.

The CABA staff & I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas!! We hope that you will have a successful “New-Bee Year!

NOVEMBER 1, 2009
I have been having a little problem with my computer in sending all of you a message—“too many recipients” !!
Hopefully, I can go through and consolidate our list. If you have computer capabilities and have not received this newsletter, please, e-mail me at jackdo @pngusa.net.

TBA had their convention in Crossville this past month. Don Lockhart & Jamie Ledford attended. There were some excellent speakers and representatives from our “local” suppliers were there. Don will give us a report at today’s meeting.
TBA had requested a testimonial from the 2009 Hive Grant and two of our recipients responded. Jon Sharp and Sue McClure gave us excellent report cards on their first year as bee keepers. I will attach Sue’s report in this newsletter. Don Lockhart & Jamie Ledford are her mentors. Ben & Darlene Smith have decided to opt out. Ben returned all equipment at the CABA picnic. We will use this for next year’s efforts. I would suggest that we do not enter into the TBA Grant, but use our own CABA hives along with this equipment to start up a new beekeeper for the 2010 season. CABA’s two hives are doing well and I got one super of honey from one of them. They are strong hives and we should be able to make one or two splits next year.
Our topic today will be on the small hive beetle (SHB). It has been a rough year for all of us with these “critters”. There have been several traps put out on the market with some being labor intensive or just plain messy! Checkmite with coumaphos as its active ingredient has been about the only chemical to really “hammer” them. I will try and go through the life cycle of the SHB and some of the treatment that you may perform to keep them under control.

I know that I borrow a lot of Jim Primus’ articles from his newsletter, and I will do it again today. I am sure that Jim will not mind, because his sole effort with NABA in the past ten years has been educating people on beekeeping. I will footnote the portions that are borrowed from him. If you ever get a chance to attend one of NABA’s meetings, I would highly recommend doing so. They meet at Ellington the second Sunday of each month.

Since Florida has instigated its program of creating a honey standard, other states have fallen in line. I don’t know where Tennessee has gotten to, but they do have it on their “menu” in the legislature. Other then the importation of adulterated honey by chemical usage (China in particular), there has been honey put on the market that has been diluted with corn syrup. Here are a few simple tests that you and your customers can do to see if it has corn syrup in it.
1. Drop a spoonful of honey into milk. If the honey dissolves, it may be adulterated.
2. Dip a cotton candle wick into the honey. Light a match to it, if it doesn’t burn, it may be adulterated.
3. Honey should have a pleasant floral aroma. corn syrup, on the the other hand, has no smell. If your honey has no scent, it may not be honey.

I had promised to feature a plant each month that has been a good pollen source for our bees. In my yard, I have several Viburnum X rhytidophylloides which is call simply an Alleghany Viburnum (Alleghany being the cultivar). This fast growing plant has grown up to 15’ tall and about 6’-8- across. It makes an excellent screen and is “semi” deciduous: meaning that it maintains most of its leaves. It is very cold hardy; listed in zones 4 through 8. It has dark green leaves that have a leather –like texture with a light gray color underneath. They are quite striking when the wind blows. The leaves are rather large reaching a length of 6” to 8”. The flowers are a creamy white borne in 3” to 4’ diameter, flat –topped cymes (clusters). The flowers bloom in early April and also in the fall. They take full sun or partial shade. I have found that when there is a dearth of flowers blooming, especially in the fall that the bees seem to always find this plant.

Alan Woodruff, our treasurer has collected dues from most of our members. If you have not paid, please, see Alan or Dick Brickner. We use these funds to continue bee education, our spring workshop, and booth events.
I attended the NABA meeting in September and was able to catch the lecture by Margie Hunter. As Jim Primus said, “Anyone who attended with an interest in establishing native plants around their property for the benefit of pollinators, especially bees, obtained a lot of useful information.” There were 85 people in attendance! Her book “Gardening with Native plants of Tennessee, The Spirit Place” was on sale at the meeting. Remember, you can get a 20% discount at books A Million if you mention the Tennessee Beekeepers Association and provide them with a code number: ID code 8000007586. Margie can be reached at: www.gardeningwithnativeplants.com.

Steve McGee had a hip replacement this past month and will not be attending today. He is one of the directors of NABA. He was going to give us a summary of the talk given by John Sanford with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. John was going to inform the membership about the various restrictions on selling honey—even the use of tasting spoons! It is this authors feeling that the State is sometimes too restrictive, but who am I ?

Our relaxing time is soon approaching. Now all we have to do is repaint and repair our wooden ware. Put in new foundation where the wax moths destroyed the old ones. Place our orders for spring packages (this could wait until December or January, but who has the time during the holidays?). One fact remains; your bees should not be looked at if the temperature outside is under 55 degrees! Do not disturb the warm ball of bees that is trying to stay warm. The final two things to do are; remove your chemical treatments and make certain that the hive has enough honey. The latter can be accomplished by simply cracking the hive box and tipping it forward to check the weight.

If you have less than 3-4 frames of bees, it might be better to combine them with a stronger hive. This can be done by putting a queen excluder over a piece of newspaper on top of the hive that you are taking the weak hive to. Make a few slits in the grid of the excluder and finally place the weak hive box with bees on top of this. You would then place the inner cover, and top cover on that box. Of course the bottom board, inner cover, and top cover from the weak colony would not become a part of this, but would be used next year for a split or new bee package.

I wanted to bring everyone’s attention to our vice president, Dick Brickner. I don’t know if you all had noticed, but at the conclusion of each meeting Dick is left to clean up after all of us. He does this uncomplaining but he could use some help. I would personally like to thank Dick for these efforts and apologize for not pitching in. Dick Brickner —“Our Man Behind the Scene”.
The manufacturer of “Mite Away II” has come out with a new product call “Mite Away II Quick Strip”. This is reported by NOD Apiary Products, Ontario, Canada to have several “magical” moments (your editor’s description). They say that:
1.Treatment is just 7 days-Total
2.No residues—Can be applied During a honey flow, with no withdrawal period.
3.Has been tested successfully in temperatures up to 92 degrees.
4. It is 100% fully compostable—meaning that after application is completed it can be left in the hive for the bees to dispose of or can be removed and composted.
They report that it is easy to use—simply crack open the brood box and lay the strip on the frames—DONE.
It not only kills the varroa on the bees but targets the next generation of mites before they even emerge from the cells. Thus, killing them directly where they live and breed. It is “effective, killing 95% of Varroa under the cell cap”.
I assume that they have a web site to obtain further information. Jim Primus is skeptical to say the least.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2009

Fall is here! By now everyone is preparing their hives for winter. Right? Today’s meeting will be mainly about using inorganic chemicals for making our bees healthy. For those of you that do not know, inorganic chemicals are man made and have “bad” ingredients in them that can get into your wax. Apistan (fluvinate) and Checkmite (coumaphos) strips are an example. Hence, all honey supers should be removed. Both of these are effective for varroa mites and Checkmite which will also control SHB (small hive beetle). Although some resistance has developed to these by the “critters”, they are still widely used. As I have been preaching, if we pool are orders, we can save money. For example: Brushy Mountain has Apistan on sale. One package of 10 is $21.75 (regularly $23.75), but a 100 pack is $175.00 or $1.75 each compared to $2.18 each. I have a flyer from BMF that gives other promotions.

Jim Primus has produced a chart in his “Hivetool” August newsletter. I will have copies at our meeting Sunday. It informs you as to how long to keep the chemicals in your hives and what the outside temperatures should be.

BEE HAPPENINGS
Don Lockhart and Jason Dodson went to Memphis and brought back some corn syrup. If you are tired of mixing sugar, Jason will sell you some by the pound. Jason also has some honey to sell.
John Seaborn has honey to sell. It is cotton honey from Georgia. I will place his prices in another section. Tom Shouse from Lewisburg also has honey (Black Locust). This will also be placed in our “classified” section. Maybe I should sell ads in our newsletter!
I had a new couple that is interested in getting into beekeeping come out to my apiary this week: Jack & Cindy Coleman. They live in Hampshire and have a small farm. I hope that ya’all will make them feel welcome.
The CABA hives have been doing well and if the girls have not taken the honey out of the super we may get some honey off of one of them. We will remove the super and do a hive inspection after the meeting Sunday. Bring your bee veil if you want to participate.

UPCOMING EVENTS
NABA in Ellington will be having a guest speaker, Margie Hunter, author of “Gardening with Native Plants of Tennessee The Spirit Place”. It will be at 2:00 p.m. Sept. 13th at Ellington. Anyone wanting to share a ride with me is welcome to come. Give me a call at (931) 215-5389.

CABA will be having its annual fall picnic this October 4th at Williams Spring Park off of Hwy. 43 in Mt. Pleasant. This gives us all time to meet the families of our membership who are after all the main support of our bee life. I promise to set up the horseshoe pits this time. CABA will supply the drinks and the main course. Helen McClain (931 381-6500, Elizabeth Domkowski (931) 381-7960 and Cindy Ring will be coordinating the pot luck items. Please give them a call.

SOMETHING NEW
I am going to introduce a new variety of plant each month that will be good for our “girls”. This month’s plant is Itea virgininica or Virginia Sweetspire. It is hardy from zones 5-9 (we are in zone 6). It grows to a mature height of 3-5’, possibly 10’ with a spread that is wider than its height. It takes full sun which will produce a fuller plant. It thrives in moist soils. It is a medium to fast growers under these conditions.
The flowers on the Itea are “perfect, white, lightly fragrant, 1/3 to 1/2” in diameter. They are born in an upright, dense, pubescent, 2-6” long and 5/8” wide racemes. Flowers are formed on previous season’s wood and pruning should be executed after flowering in June; sufficiently abundant to make the shrub very attractive. It is quite staggering when these are done in mass plantings. It is drought tolerant and adaptable to any ph soil conditions. The fall color is extraordinary. It prefers fertile soil and can be transplanted easily from containers. Pieces of the plant can be divided and successfully transplanted. It will also take shade.
Some interesting cultivars are:
Little Henry—a more compact form
Long Spire – a vigorous selection with dark shiny green leaves. It has 8” long racemes. Fall color is yellow-orange.
Henry’s Garnet—This is a superb selection with reddish purple fall color. It grows 3-4’ high with 6” long flowers. It has survived -20 degrees and will take zone 8 summer temps (Jackson, MS.)
This plant was featured in the “American Bee Journal” with a picture of a bee gathering pollen. If you want to grow something for your bees, I would highly recommend Itea ‘Henry’s Garnet’. There were four other cultivars, but I question the availability. Most nurseries carry the aforementioned varieties.

FALL PREPARATIONS
Besides worrying about your fall medications, one must worry about if your colony has enough honey to survive the winter. Since the “winter brood” lives 3 months (normal is 5 weeks during the honey flow), they will need enough honey stores to make it through the winter. It is recommended that a strong hive have at least 90# of honey, which would be a full deep box. They could do with a couple of frames less, but that is a safe amount. You can determine this by “cracking“ open the back of the deep and leaning it forward to determine the weight. I have heard of some beekeepers that have put scales under their hives! Of course they still will be gathering pollen from Iron Weed, wild mint, and Ragweed (which makes a disgusting tasting honey); so don’t panic yet. On new hives or splits, I would continue to feed (this would be your opportunity to give them “Fumigilin D” for nosema). Feeding should stop after the first frost, because the bees will not leave the brood to go up and get it. With fall chemical treatments and feeding this will probably be our last efforts made for “our girls” until February. Of course there will be wooden wear repair and ordering in the winter! It never stops completely.

CLASSIFIEDS
John Seaborn (931) 729-9229—Cotton Honey For Sale
55 gal. drums--$1300.00; 5 gal. --$156.00; 5 or more 5gal.--$120.00 ea. or $2.00/lb.
queens--$25.00 ea. or more than 5 queens--$20.00
Tom Shouse (931) 242-0208—Black Locust Honey for sale
pint--$9.00; quart--$18.00
Ibrahim Talafhah (NABA member) talafhah@yahoo.com Bees For Sale
10 frame hive w/ new queen--$150.00; 20 frame hive--$225.00

Brushy Mountain Bee Farm has a new fall promotion. If you place an order for any amount, you are automatically entered into to win a 9-Frame Extractor! It even has a variable speed motor.
Kelly’s has for their promotion: If you place an order of $200.00 or more, you get a cap and T-shirt.
Middle Tennessee’s honey production has been very poor this year. The rains did us a disservice by washing away the spring pollen and knocking the blooms off the trees. Our bees tried to get out, but it just would not stop raining! I had supers on the hives all the way through August, when I normally harvest the first of July. The connumdrum in this year was that if you waited too long, the bees removed the honey and took it down into the hive box! As with all agriculture, “Maybe next year.” Clover did very well, but apparently the flowers do not produce a lot of pollen. Have you noticed how long a bee stays on a clover flower? It is a few seconds. My Crepe Myrtles have been very helpful in providing pollen, but after 10am, the bees quit working it for some reason.
Well as usual, I am trying to complete this newsletter by the time our meeting starts. If you have any news or announcements, please, call or e-mail me.

Jack Wohlfarth, president

AUGUST 2, 2009

BAD HONEY YEAR
It certainly has been a bad year for our girls. The rains seem to have gone on forever! Most of our Maury County beekeepers have reported poor or no honey production. The Black Locust blooms were knocked off the trees before our bees could get to them. The Tulip Poplar was rained out as well. All that our bees have really been able to forage is white clover, which has been spurred into flower production by the rains. I am hoping to get some fall honey from this. As they say, “Maybe next year”.
Don Lockhart and Jason Dodson have been very successful in their queen raising efforts. Of course it was a practice run for both of them; so the genetics were of the Heinz 57 variety—some were Holcombee queens, some were Horton queen grafts and some were wild queen grafts. The fact was that they had a pretty good rate of success. It sure beats having to buy queens. maybe next year they will have some to sell to the membership. Ten dollars each, right boys?

At our June meeting, I mentioned that CABA would sponsor a truck to go and buy sugar from Mr. Higdon in Chattanooga. I have only had two people interested , Gilbert Clark and John Seaborn (He said that he would drive). Two years ago Tom Voss and I went down and brought back 34 barrels. We charged CABA members $70.00/barrel and $80.00 for non-members. This included a $10.00 deposit for the barrel and $10.00 for fuel/rental. That came out to $.12/lb. which is still cheap. The barrels weighed 700#. Jason let us use his barn as a distribution station. We sold the last barrel in June. Feeding the bees should stop when we have our first frost in November; so it is probably too late. I would still be willing to entertain a venture if we had more then two people interested.

BEE LABLE REQUIREMENTS
If by chance you are able to harvest honey this year, there are certain requirements that you must have on your labels.
1.Your name, address, and phone #
2. the weight in ounces and grams
3.It is also the State law that you register your hives. Go to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture website to locate a registration form, complete it, and mail it to the address provided. There is no cost to do this. If you plan on selling honey in a big way, I would recommend that you do this. Also, if you plan to sell or move hive, they must be registered. I had some really nice labels made by Brushy Mountain Bee Farm. Office Max does a pretty good job as well.
For more information on labeling go to:
www.honey.com/honeyindustry/resource/labeling.asp
The State of Tennessee through Tennessee Cod Annoted, Section 53-1-102(29) allows a beekeepers that sells honey “infrequently” up to 150 gallons.

UPCOMING EVENTS
Williamson County Fair-Aug. 7th-15th
Tennessee State Fair-Sept. 11th-20th
note: you may register your honey or bee products on line at www.tennesseestatefair.org/compete/catalog.asp There is no entry fee, but it must be done soon.
NABA guest speaker, Margie Hunter will speak about “Bee Plants” at Ellington on Sept. 13th. I was going to try and get Margie to talk at one of our meetings—possibly January.
October 4th—CABA Family Picnic at Williams Springs Park on Hwy. 43.

Trevor Qualls of Bon Aqua Springs Apiaries and Woodware has 8 & 10 frame bee hives for sale. I think that these are 4.9 bees. I don’t know the price, but you may reach him at (931) 670-5138 or Trevor.Qualls@yahoo.com.

BEE NEWS
Recently, I had a friend ask me to bring him some bee hives out to his sunflower field! The blooms were all open and the wild bees were all over them. Since they bloom at this time of year, this crop might be worth considering as a crop for fall honey. Does anyone have some experience as to how this would taste? The pollen is a rich yellow coloring. My hives are filling up with nectar very quickly.

BEE VENOM ALLERGY
An article in the August issue of American Bee Journal by Karsten Munstedt and Denise Wrobel produced some interesting facts on allergic reactions to bee stings. “Beekeepers and their familiy members are at a risk of about 20% for developing a bee venom allergy, especially when they are stung only occasionally”. The results were found that bee venom allergies (BVA) “were found to occur after 15 stings and in the second year of beekeeping. It was apparent that the percentage of beekeepers suffering from other allergies than BVA was high at 56%. Thus it seems that people with a tendency to allergies are more likely to develop BVA.
Forty-three beekeepers were evaluated for success of desensitization. After having undergone this process, they were stung18 times on average with some 800 times! The results showed that 80% of the subjects did not show any further reactions.”
Of course precautionary measures must still be taken such as having an emergency kit with adrenalin (epinepharine), antihistamines, and corticosteroids, with you at all times. Personally, I have found that the desensitization process has been very successful. I have been stung several times and have had minimum reactions. Barry Richards, a former officer of TBA and a member of NABA had been taking the treatments for five years and has been removed from the program. That was encouraging to hear, since they told me that I would have to do this for life! The venom shots are taken once a month.

For those of you that did not receive a July news letter, please let me know and I will mail it to you. I will try and have some copies at today’s meeting. Our postponed meeting in July was called off because of rain. That was a good thing, because right at 2:00 we got a tremendous rain storm!

JULY 12, 2009

We are now starting into the hot times of bee maintenance. If you wear a suit, one can get pretty warm! Since our days are much longer, it would be beneficial to do your inspections in the early morning.

This is also the period when your colony has built up its population to its peak and when varroa mites are revealing themselves in large numbers. The adults usually enter the drone cells first. Dick Brickner will demonstrate a drone cell frame and show how to control mites with their use. Sucrocide is a product that is not harmful to bees and their honey which may be used year around. it is put into a spray pump and each frame of bees is sprayed every 7 days. I have used it and found that it is labor intensive, but effective. Varroa inspections would be suggested for this time of year. Tom Voss found an article from the USDA in conjunction with Florida State where they have found a varroa attractant that may be applied on a sticky board. You may read this on www.ars.usda.gov. Look for “Luring Varroa Mites to Their Doom”. I have copies of this if you do not have access to a computer.
Because our meeting this Sunday will be informal, I have not prepared much for this newsletter, but I did want to feature some interesting facts on harvesting your honey.

WHEN IS MY HONEY READY TO HARVEST?
Having a refractometer is a useful tool to have in determining the moisture content of your honey. It should be registering 18.5%. If you have a higher reading, there is a tendency for the honey to ferment! You may decrease some moisture in the warming process – not over 135 degrees. However, this will not reduce high moisture levels effectively. It is best to check the moisture, and if it is high, let the bees cure it. If you have already removed the honey supers and found that your levels are too high; then you may put the supers in a room with a dehumidifier for 24 hours. You would criss/cross the supers to allow it to work effectively.
I recently inspected the hives of Jim Underwood who has been doing beekeeping since he was 14 years old—he is now 79! Jim waits until the honey cells are convex, which indicates that the moisture content has been reduced. He has done it this way his entire life without a refractometer.

In this month’s ABJ, the author T’Lee Sollenberger suggests that if you have a frame that is partially capped, you may shake the frame and if no nectar splashes out that honey is also ready to extract. She mentions several refractometers that range in price from $75.00 to $435.00. These would be the analog and digital varieties. All meters occasionally have to be recalibrated using distilled water. What drives the cost of these instruments is the quality of prism used in their construction. She recommends using a MISCO Palm Abbe BKPR-2. T’Lee goes into a great depth on the pros & cons of each instrument and the article is very informative.
Sources for these instruments;
Atago U.S.A.
12011 N.E. First Street
Building C,Suite 110
Bellevue, WA 98005
(425) 637-2107
www.atago.net
Noah Radford-cust.serv.

MISCO Refractometer
3401 Virginia RD.
Cleveland, OH 44122
800-358-1100
www.misco.com/products/BKPR-2
Kathy Widing-customer serv.

I am disappointed a great deal in this years honey production. Apparently the rains ruined the Black Locust and Tulip Poplar bloom production. About the only pollen that my bees found in abundance was clover. I am strongly considering waiting until the end of the month to begin my actual harvest. Jim Primus of NABA once told me that if you waited too late that the bees would move the honey down into the brood boxes. Jeff Hale had a super of cut comb completely filled when he decided to give them an additional week. When he went back, all of the honey had been removed! Hmmm, this could be a lesson.

As for myself, I had one hive that had three supers in various stages of being filled. I checked them this week and they are filled with brood. Apparently, one of the wires on the excluder was bent and allowed the queen to move up. No honey is going to come from this hive. Now I will have to put the supers on the bottom of the hive until all of the brood has emerged and I will have to find the queen to keep her out—more work.

Gilbert Clark was the only individual that responded to the question of going to Chattanooga to buy some barrels of sugar. CABA will advance the money for the truck lease. Two years ago, Tom Voss and I went down and got 34,700# in barrels. Considering the freight and barrel deposit ($10.00), it brought the cost of the sugar to $.12/lb. Tom Voss told me that he is buying it at Sam’s or Costco for a little bit more. “The convenience is worth it.” he says. Jason Dodson was gracious enough to let us use his barn as a distribution center.

Dick Brickner’s son is doing much better after having a liver and a heart transplant! What a major medical feat was that!
Well, that’s about all the news for now. Hopefully, we will be able to start making plans for our October picnic. That was always a good opportunity to meet our beekeepers’s back-up—their families.

Jack Wohlfarth, pres.

JUNE 7, 2009

Well, we finally moved our bees to the U.T. location. Thank you Don for helping me. Now we can talk about bee subjects and go outside and see what we are talking about! This Sunday, we will take our ”newbees” out and identify eggs, brood, pollen, honey, and maybe the queen. Each hive has a Dan Purvis queen.

Edwin Holcombee will be having his “First Responders” meeting at the TN. Fire Service and Codes Enforcement and Academy, 2161 Unionville Deason Rd., Shelbyville, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. on June 16th. There will be a presentation prior to this by Dr. William Kern from the Univ. of Florida on AHB. I don’t know the exact time of Dr. Kern’s talk will be, but you may reach Edwin at (931) 684-0826. Edwin wants no more than two people from Middle TN. Bee Associations. It should be an excellent learning experience.

The TN. Beekeepers Association has gotten an approval to receive a 20% discount on most books at Books-A-Million under their community Discount Program. The TBA is in their computer system, but you may have to provide the discount ID code 8000007586 at the checkout. It does not apply to specialty titles, café items, and gift cards.

Dick Brickner will not be with us today. His son has recently had a heart & liver transplant! Dick is in Cleveland, Ohio helping him convalesce. Our prayers and thoughts should be with Dick and Neda at their time of concern. You may reach him on the CABA website, if you desire to wish him your best.

The bee industry has lost a major player this past month. G.C. McCrary of Buckatunna, MS. has long been one of CABA’s bee sources for queens and bee packages. He had Carnolian queens. In 1942, G.C. had gotten one hive from his father, Doye McCrary. By 1944, he had 200 hives. In 1946, he sold 200 two-pound packages to the Saskatchewan Beekeepers Cooperative Association for $2.75 each for a total of $550.00 – his first sale.

Over the years, G.C. had 4500 hives! His sons are now operating the business. Howard, his oldest, has taken over along with Chris. At one time, his apiary was the third largest apiary in the United States. G.C. also assisted local Mississippi agricultural with pollination of their crops; mostly blueberries and watermelons. He died on May 17th, 2008 at the age of 81. His poll bearers were dressed in bee suits as they carried him to his final resting place. G.C. McCrary was named Beekeeper of the year and honored at an induction ceremony in Vicksburg, MS. in 2001. He will be sorely missed. Jason Dodson has used his bees for a number of years and had lead me to several of my purchases in the past.

Our state grant has been applied for in obtaining money for bee inspections. Our bee inspectors receive $20.00 per apiary and $5.00 per hive. The state requires that you register your apiaries and receive an ID number. It would behoove you to do this and put the number on the inside & outside of your hives. Last year, one of our members had two hives stolen! You may have your hives inspected for free by one of our inspectors and then you can apply with Mike Studer or Gray Haun at Ellington Ag. Center ( 615-837-5338). If you need addresses and phone numbers, please contact me or Alan Woodruff.

As a note, for the inspectors, please turn in your forms to Alan who will then send them in to the state. The inspection money is automatically deposited in the CABA account and Alan will mail you your check. In this way, Alan will be able to keep up with deposits that go into our account.

PROPERTIES OF HONEY
I am going to talk about this subject today but, for those of you who are not going to be able to attend, I thought that it would be wise to put this in the newsletter.

A bee will live five to six weeks during the honey flow. The “winter” brood may live 2 ½ to 3 months. It takes the life time of 48 bees to make two tablespoons of honey. Bees need to provide 70,000 loads of nectar and 50,000 miles to produce a single pound of honey. Your bees will travel up to 5 miles to get their nectar and pollen. Yes, they have sacks on their legs, but there is an electrostatic charge that helps the pollen cling to the bees. It has been said that bees are “flying dust mops”! In some cases, this is bad; agricultural sprays may be in the air and they will bring insecticides back to the hive.

Honey is actually bee “puke”. Ugh! They use their honey stomachs to ingest and regurgitate the nectar a number of times until it is partially digested. They work together and at the final regurgitation the honey is put into a cell and sealed. Because the honey has a lot of moisture, the bees in the colony will cool the hive by fanning their wings. The ideal moisture content for extraction is 18.5 %. Otherwise, it will ferment in the jar. A refractometer is used to measure the moisture content.

Honey is a mixture of sugars and other compounds. It is mainly fructose (38.5%) and glucose (31%). compared to our sugar syrup which is 48% fructose and 47% glucose and 5% sucrose. Honey also contains tiny amounts of several compounds thought to function as antioxidants, including chrysin, pinobanksin, vitamin C, catalase, and pinocembrin. Because of this, honey is very good for burns, abrasions, and indigestion.
Typical honey analysis:
Fructose--38.5% Glucose --31% Sucrose---1.0% Water---17% Other sugars: 9% (maltose, melezitose)
Ash---.17% Other---3.38%

Honey has a density of about 1.36 kilograms per liter (36% denser than water). Honey is acidic in nature, with a ph of 3.6.
There are 300 varieties of honey, because there are 300 kinds of flowers. A “Monofloral” honey has a predominant flower that the bees get their pollen from. In our area, we have Locust, Tulip Poplar, Clover and Sourwood (blooms in July). To me, the Locust honey is best, because it tastes as if it has melted butter in it. An example of a “Polyfloral” honey would be wild flower honey, where the bees get pollen from a number of summer wildflowers. This is usually harvested in August

PROCESSING HONEY
There are several varieties of honey depending upon how it is processed;

1. Crystallized honey—honey which has some of the glucose that has crystallized. Also called “granulated honey”.

2. Pasteurized honey—Honey that has been heated in a pasteurization process. This reduces the moisture level, destroys yeasts cell, and liquefies crystals. While this process sterilizes the honey and improves shelf life, it also results in product deterioration since it increases the level of hydroxymethyfurfural (HMF) and reduces enzyme activity. The additional heat (over 150 degrees) also effects the appearance, taste, and fragrance.

3. Raw Honey—This is honey as it exists in the beehive. It is obtained by extraction, straining, and warming to a temperature not over 120 degrees. This is primarily how CABA members process their honey.

There are other processes that I have not seen: Strained honey, Ultrafiltered honey, Ultrasonicated honey and Whipped honey. As hobbyists, we are concerned mainly with the “Raw Honey” process.

STORING HONEY
Honey should be store in opaque vessels, or stored in a dark place. Optimal preservation temperature is 39 to 50 degrees. It should be stored in a dark, dry place, preventing t from absorbing moisture. honey ahs a strong tendency to absorb outside smells and moisture; it is advisable to keep it clean, and hermetically sealed. It should not be stored in an open container in the refrigerator because of this.

High quality honey is distinguished by: fragrance, taste, and constancy. Ripe, freshly collected, high quality honey at 68 degrees should flow from a knife in a straight stream, without breaking into separate drops. After falling down, the honey should form a bead. The honey when poured should form small, temporary layers that disappear fairly quickly. This indicates high viscosity. If it does not, it would indicate high or excessive water content (over 20%). Honey with excessive water content is not suitable for a long term preservation. Honey was found viable in Egyptian tombs! Many more interesting facts may be found at www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey.

Our Amish connection has proved to be a great addition to our wooden ware source. Thank you Bob Gilkey for leading us to him. His prices are very reasonable. He has yet to get into making frames, but his boxes are exceptional. He has also changed the hardware cloth on the screened bottom boards to 1/8 “ which as Edwin Holcombe pointed out is far better to keep the bees out.

Our next meeting will probably be at one of our honey houses, where we will extract honey. Anyone wishing to have their honey extracted may bring their frames to the meeting. There will be hot biscuits, and butter along with honey right out of the extractor. I will let you know if it will be at my house or not. It kind of got a little crowded last year.

Anyone wanting to sell/buy equipment, please let me know so that I may include it in the next news letter.

MAY 3, 2009
It certainly has been a”beesy” month. We have had Mule Day, our workshop, checking our own hives & putting on supers. Of course, during all of this, we had bee swarms—in some cases we were averaging from 2-4 swarms per day. Don Lockhart was like a traffic cop one day—he sent Jason to Spring Hill, Steve Brown to Mt. Pleasant, and then he had to get one in Culleoka! Pam & Jeff Draper (and Anika) went with me to get two swarms in Glencoe Subdivision. We have a picture of them on our web site. Pam was singing the blues at our workshop on her “bee luck”, and now she has three hives! I am proud of you both, Pam f& Jeff (and Anika).

Our Mule Day booth sold over 226# of honey and we went through 1 ½ boxes of bee candy—some sold and some handed out. The biggest day was Saturday with a Tom Voss, Eddie Priest and Sheila Barrho carrying the day with $700.00 in sales!! When I came to work the booth Sunday, there was just a few 1# jars to sell. I would also like to thank Cindy Ring for making honey roasted pecans Saturday. They were a big hit and got an A+ from Eddie and Tom. I just hope that some of the customers got to try some. Is that right Eddie?

I would to thank all of you that helped man the booth; Don Lockhart, Gene Graham, Mike Cassidy, Steve Brown, Sheila Barrho, Pam Draper, Eddie Priest, Tom Voss and Dick Brickner. Dick deserves a very special thanks for making it the success that it was. He put a lot of miles on running back & forth to the booth, especially Thursday night.
In case some of you did not hear about the terrific storm that passed through the park, they had to put the vendors in the High School for protection. Needless to say, the tent was bent up and in a different place. Everything was wet. Dick had a bad feeling about the storm and went up there to see about things. That was when he found the extent of the destruction. He then loaded everything in his truck and brought it home, only to come back the next morning and put it back up with Don & Gene’s help. What a tremendous effort on his part. Well done, Dick!

Our Beekeepers Workshop was a really good one this year. Forty-three people attended with 17 visitors. I wish to thank our speakers, Dick Brickner, Pam Draper, Trevor Qualls (who substituted for John Seaborn), Jamie Ledford,, and of course, I did a little. We gained some new members:
Trevor Qualls Glen Redman Elizabeth Domkowski Pamela Hutton
Shannette Campbell Tim Adams Ben & Darlene Smith* Jon & Heather Sharp*
Sue McClure* Victoria Keith Martin & Shanda Kozicki
*winners of the TBA & CABA beekeeping kits.

The food was great! Ms. Helen McClain’s cupcakes and Robert Bells’ hickory nut pie were tremendous! The membership was outstanding! We had a great time! I also would like to thank Don Lockhart, Steve Brown , Eddie Priest, Jason Dodson, James Wade, Kitty & Jeff Stalnaker, Jamie Ledford, and of course Dick Brickner ( who did a lot of the clean-up with Kitty). You guys & gals were great in putting it all together.

CABA NEWS
Don Lockhart will be going up to Paducah, KY. to take a course in queen raising with Kent Williams. It will consist of two trips—one to learn grafting 3 day old larvae (Don, take your glasses or magnifying glass) and going back in 10 days when the queens come out. Don feels that CABA needs a queen raiser in our Maury County area. He is also tired of paying for queens and so is his wallet!

According to John Seaborn, the Elk River Beekeeping Assoc. in Winchester has had some bad luck with their barrels of sugar this year. They bought them from the same person, Mr. Higdon, in Higdonville, that we got ours from in 2007. Apparently it had some adulterated powder sugar or something in it. When the colonies were fed sugar water, they died out! Several colonies were lost because of this. They have sent the sugar to the State to have it tested. I will let you know the results when they come back.

April and May seem to come in the following cycles; first, we have swarms everywhere, and then we get phone calls for bee removal from homes. Jeff Hale seems to be the only CABA member that does this. I help sometimes, and I actually removed one this week from the base of a front porch pillar. Jeff & I will remove another one this Saturday from the side of a house. Anyone wanting to be on our list, please let me know.

As a matter of fact, Kitty Stalnaker is or has been trying to get up a list of: 1. Mentors 2. Swarm catchers and 3. Bee sources, nucs, queens, or swarms. Please give her your name and contact info.

As a member of CABA, you can gain a significant savings on magazine subscription to the American Bee Journal (ABJ) and Bee Culture. The prices are as follows:
1 year 2 year
Bee Culture $21.00 (16%)* $38.00(21%)*
ABJ $19.10 (25%)* $36.15(25%)*
*per cent savings
I have the payment forms to be completed. You will need Alan’s or my signature. In some cases, if you call and tell them that you are a member of an association, they will give you the discounted rates. These are excellent sources for info and bee supplies.

NABA advertised two colonies of bees in their April newsletter that will be available in late May/early June. Each colony consists of 20 frames of bees, queen, honey & pollen. The cost is $160.00. Contact Kevin Strange, 615-595-8873, Franklin,TN. or email; kevin.strange@vanderbilt.edu

APRIL/MAY BEE MAINTENANCE
It is hard to believe that our girls will have just 6-8 weeks to make up their honey supply! The Black Locust and Yellow Poplars are their primary “good” honey sources and they are now in full bloom. You should have excluders on your hive boxes and then your super. Add one super at a time. When they fill the middle 4 frames, it is time to add another super. Put the new one under the first super. Rearrange the frames in the first super (now in the #2 position) by taking the uncompleted frames on the outside and put them in the middle. If these are new foundation, I would continue to feed them in order to facilitate their building the foundation out. New foundation will not be built out after the honey flow is over! They should have your honey capped and completed by the end of June which is Harvest time. If you need assistance in harvesting your honey, let me know. In some cases, depending on the weather and the strength of the honey flow, you will continue to add supers for the next 4-6 weeks. You just might need a ladder! It will not be necessary to go into the hive for inspections—it would be best to leave them alone and let them do their thing. Hopefully, you have checked for queen “rightness’ by now and all is well with their world.

Our guest speaker for May will be Edwin Holcomb from Shelbyville. He and his wife, Elaine, have been in the forefront of beekeeping for several decades. Edwin’s queen raising has been internationally famous. The Holcomb queens are varroa and tracheal mite resistant. He is one of the leaders of the Duck River Bee Association and owns “Backwoods Apiary”. Edwin trained under Leslie Little who originally was a bee keeper in the Spring Hill area. Mr. Little is the author of several publications and especially A Bee Book for Beginners which was printed in its 9th edition. There is so much information about these two gentlemen that it would take another newsletter to complete. Needless to say, both of these men have been huge contributors to our bee culture. We welcome Edwin at today’s meeting.

Dick Brickner went to see and purchase some of the cypress woodenware that we had on display at the workshop. Actually we will raffle off the box at today’s meeting. The gentleman that makes them is Amish and does not have a phone. Dick has his price list posted on our web site. They will accommodate Walter Kelley frames. There is normally a 2-3 day wait after you place your order. It appears to be made of a good quality cypress.

If you have any news that you would like for me to include in the next newsletter, please e-mail me at: jackdo@pngusa.net.

MARCH 1, 2009
It will be soon be our start for another hectic year. I suppose by now all of you have your wooden ware and foundation refurbished and put together—ready for the excitement of the 09’ Honey Flow. Righhhht.

Depending upon how much we are able to accomplish at this meeting, I was thinking that we would not hold our April meeting since we were going to see so much of each other. It will require a lot of us to volunteer our time. Are you getting tired of the word “volunteer” yet? Mule day will take up four days of the first week and then two weeks later we will have our work shop on the 18th.
Mule Day will begin for us this year on April 2nd, Thursday at 10:00 a.m. Our set-up will start at 7:00 a.m. We will need at least three people (I am planning on being one of them). I am thinking that the “take-down” will be that afternoon and that it will not last until 5:00 p.m. I have the wooden ware, bee suit, veil, four bales of straw, NHB honey recipes, plastic spoons, CABA’s framed bee chart, and most everything else except volunteers and folding chairs, and Kurt Reekstin’s tent. Someone will have to go and get the tent on Wednesday.

We will also need some honey to sell. NABA is offering to its members $3.00/lb. for honey. Jason has said that he had some honey; meaning that he may not have enough. If anyone has some honey that they wish to sell, please let me know. I have two cases of 1# jars to sell. If we sell the 1# jars for $5.00, which will give us a $2.00 net. Last year I had some CABA honey labels made so that we could put those on the jars. That way we would not be advertising someone’s honey, but the organization’s honey. I also thought about presenting the honey on slices of apple along with a spoon full. What about cookies made with honey? Does anyone have some ideas?

We will also have some recipes to hand out from the National Honey Board.

The Mule Day will be the easiest project for the month; if we have the volunteers. If you do decide to help—bring your rain coats! Last year, it snowed on me. Whatever the case, Mule Day is known to coincide with our spring rains.
The workshop will be the most intense effort on our part. In the past we have covered the following topics:

1. Characteristics of a bee colony, bee biology, and life cycle.
2. Pests & Disease Management-organic & inorganic.
3. Start up costs for a new beekeeper—equipment, bee sources, wooden ware, etc.—In short, everything that you would need to start as a new beekeeper. I would like to add a speaker to this giving the benefits of the Tennessee Grant for three free bee kits. This would be one our committee members that worked out the CABA guidelines in conjunction with TBA.
4. Building wooden ware. Last year we were a little crowded and we did not have enough “stations”. This year, I would suggest having about 8-10 people. Each station would do one of the following: Putting together hive bodies, Assembling bottom boards, inner covers and top covers, frame assembly, wire installation, and foundation attachment. All of these positions and topics will require key people.

I also would like to put together the CABA booklets that we gave away last year. Also, some beginner beekeeping books would be good to give away. Last year, we also provided a lunch. If our workshop hours are going to be 9:00 to 5:00 p.m., someone will get hungry. While I am wishing for the “moon”, What about door prizes? Anyone wanting to donate some items, please let me know.

Now, about current events, Jamie Ledford was gracious enough to go and pick up the Tennessee Grant Beehive Kits from TBA in Franklin. While she was there, she picked up some useful info on what Mike Studer and John Skinner have been doing. I was hoping that she would take a few minutes to fill us in (surprise! Jamie).

John Skinner has discovered that there is still a need for more workshops on Beekeeping for Hobbyist. He is now offering additional classes: one in Lebanon from April 23 thru 25th and one in Knoxville in May or June. The cost will be $100.00. To register you must contact: Debby Eslinger in the Entomology office at (865) 974-7138.
I might add that John has a new web site: www.Bees.tennessee.edu John’s e-mail is: jskinner@utk.edu . I have copies of the Lebanon schedule or you can go to: www.BeemasterflierChattanooga09.doc and then go to BeemasterFlierLebanonApril09.doc. Well, that is enough for John.

NABA has started a “youth program” where they have received donations from members to promote beekeeping for the youth in our groups. For them it was intended to provide a hive for a young individual in their organization. It can also be used for education in schools. What NABA had was several members coming in with their kids who were interested in beekeeping. The guidelines that they have are still in the making, but primary was giving a hive to a child that showed a true interest in beekeeping. The main requirement was that they have supportive parents—without which, the child would soon lose interest; as teenagers are likely to do. I would like to propose a similar fund as a memorial to James Wilkes. This would carry his name forward in our beekeeping world. We definitely would have to work out some details, but I think that it would be worthwhile. Just look at Timothy Stalnaker a fine example of a young beekeeper.

Edwin Holcomb will be one of our guest speakers for the May meeting. He is a member of the American Bee Federation and he wants to give us some info. Edwin is an international speaker and queen raiser from Shelbyville. Edwin owns Backwoods Apiary.

SHORT NEWS CLIPS

TBA is working in conjunction with Nancy Gentry of the Florida Honey Bee Technical Council in getting a honey standard for the state of Tennessee. She was mentioned in an article in the February issue of the “Bee Culture” Magazine. I have an extensive e-mail from her giving a lot of background info on her efforts. Anyone wanting me to forward them to you, please, let me know.

Everyone is searching to provide some sort of guideline to present “pure” honey and to prevent blended or adulterated forms.
TBA is also offering a $50.00 grant for workshops. Our response is needed by 3/31/09. Dick is handling this. Also, the Community Foundation of Middle TN. has given all bee associations a one-time gift of $200.00. Jamie Ledford will report on this. A “thank you” letter is warranted.

I got an e-mail from Jeff Barnett who is editor of “Honey Bee News”. This is available at www.honeybee-news.com. It should give you some useful info.

Steve McGhee has some wooden ware for sale: Three complete hive bodies & 2 hive bodies—still in the box--$237.00.
Hm. (615) 834-4771
Wk. (931) 381-1111 X 1389

In Jamie’s talk on the TBA meeting, she will also cover the amount of honey that the State allows you to sell before you have to have a permit and an inspection of your facilities. That might be good to know for some of you.
After looking at all we have to prepare for, we might have to consider having some kind of meeting (at least with the leaders) on up coming events in April.

FEBRUARY 1, 2009

I would like to take this moment to welcome our new CABA officers: Dick Brickner as vice president and Alan Woodruff as our new treasurer. Richard (Dick) Brickner has been a CABA member for the past two or three years. He has been greatly involved in CABA’s past events, Mule Day, Work Shops, etc. He is now doing a wonderful job in etablishing and maintaining our web site. He will be an excellent VP for our little group. His phone # (931) 381-1187 and his e-mail address is bricknerdn@charter.net.
Alan & Judy Woodruff joined CABA last year at our Workshop. He has two hives. Alan does seasonal work for an accountant in Lewisburg, so he will start being real busy soon. He & Judy own a small farm north of Bear Creek Pike in Columbia. His phone # (931) 540-2899 and his e-mail is ajwoodruff@bellsouth.net. I hope that you all will show your appreciation to these two fine members.

I was very impressed at the last meeting to have so many volunteers for the various committees. That is exactly what makes up a strong organization. I am proud that we have such a wonderful group of people to share the fascinating hobby of beekeeping.
The final pages of this newsletter will be borrowed from Jim Primus’s newsletter which concerns when to start feeding your bees and chemical treatments for the spring. Initially, I was going to summarize his article, but every word was needed; so I am simply going to include copies. It is really enlightening.

NABA will be having their “Introductory Bee Course” on March 25th through the 28th. This year they will have a charge of $10.00 per individual and $20.00 per family. For more information, go to www.hivetool.com/naba. I highly recommend their short course.
Our committee members for accepting the TBA Grant are Jamie Ledford, Debbie Hale, and Gene Graham. They will be presenting some adaptations to the TBA guidelines.

We also had a committee formed to establish a CABA handbook. The members are Kitty Stalnaker, Sheila Barho, and Cindy Ring. They are supposed to have it completed for our meeting this month, but I don’t know if everyone gave them dates for all of the bee events this year. I was hoping that Steve Brown would have another “Field Day” this year, but it may be too much for him. Also, the Kiwannas Club has asked us to give a talk in June, but no date has been set yet.

The “Daily Herald” recently had an article about Paul Andrew Jackson, who was a paratrooper in WWII with the 101st Airborne. It turns out that he is a “successful beekeeper who rented his bees to farms around the nation to pollinate their crops. Does anyone know him? Maybe we can get him to talk to us at one of our meetings.

I have some ABJ subscription forms that will give you a discounted rate on the magazine. One year would be $19.10. Our new secretary/treasurer would have to sign it.
A new book has come out that should be of interest to a lot of you. It is called “The Backyard Beekeeper’s Honey Handbook”. Written by Kim Flottum, it is a guide to creating, harvesting, and cooking with natural honeys. It is published by Quarry Books, www.QuaysidePublishingGroup.com. the cost will be $24.99. The book has 168 pages and 200 photos/illustrations. Kim has also written “The Backyard Beekeeper: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard or Garden. He also edited the 41st edition of the “ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture”. Anyone of these books might be an excellent addition to your library.
Jason Dodson is still going to Walter Kelly’s in a few weeks. Those of you who that want him to pick something up, should call Kelly’s, place your order, and tell Jason what it is. Currently, they are shut down, because of the ice storm. Hopefully, they will be back on line soon.
James Wilkes, a life long beekeeper that has been working for Jason, is in intensive care at the Maury County Hospital. They plan on removing his life support tomorrow. James has cancer that has run throughout his system. Things don’t look good. James lost his wife about a year ago. He was always easy to smile, and had an infectious laugh. He never wore gloves, because his hands were too big to have any that were his size. We will miss him. His brother, Robert, still works with Jason.

We will be getting our reports back from the various committees at this meeting. I hope that all of you will show your appreciation for their hard work. Kitty tells me that the handbook will not be ready, but a lot of progress has been made. If you have any dates set up for an event or meeting about beekeeping, please let her know.

That ends my little newsletter. In the future, if you have any news that you would like to have put into it, I would be open for any calls.

Jack Wohlfarth, pres. (931) 987-0910
cell: (931) 215-5389

JANUARY 4, 2009

Another new year with “our girls” brings us to some “beezy” work. We will have a lot of decisions to make and preparations for the spring honey flow. Hopefully, this meeting will make 2009 a little bit clearer as to what we will have to prepare for. In the news for this past month, I have discovered several articles of interest.

WHERE DOES THAT HONEY COME FROM?
In the NABA Newsletter, Jim Primus had some interesting notes on the UPC codes found on the jars of honey in our supermarkets. “According to www.snopes.com, this info can be helpful, but will not always indicate the country of origin, but will indicate the country in which the barcode was assigned. For example: If a product made in Peru was shipped for packaging in Mexico, the bar code would show Mexico as the country of origin.” A sample of the bar code would be a barcode starting with 690-695; it would come from China; 471 would be Taiwan. Here is a list of barcodes:
00-13 USA and Canada 76 Switzerland and Liechtenstein
30-37 France 471 Taiwan
40-44 Germany 480 Philippines
49 Japan 628 Saudi-Arabia
50 United Kingdom 629 United Arab Emirates
57 Denmark 690-695 China
64 Finland
Foodstuffs from China, as we have heard, have been killing pets and people! This knowledge should help all of us be better informed and give our local honey an advantage.

The January 2009 issue of the ABJ has made available the first 40 volumes of the Journal online. The Mann Library has scanned the first forty issues of the ABJ and will be adding them to the Hive & the Honey Bee site. These will be available to anyone with internet capabilities.
Another article in the same issue has informed us that the Florida Honey Standard Bill has been signed into law. What this has done is “establish a standard of identity for honey that is produced, packed, repacked, distributed and sold in Florida or from Florida. It is meant to have the effect on controlling the pervasive illegal practice of blending or diluting pure honey with low-cost syrups (sugar cane, corn syrup, etc.) thereby committing fraud.” Georgia will soon follow and the states of OR, CA, OH, KS. ND, SD, WI, MD, VA, NC, WV, NY, UT, and MS are ready to initiate these campaigns. For more information you may contact Nancy Gentry at www.farmbees@gmail.com. They will be testing honey for Moisture content, sugar, Maltose content, Oligosaccharides (indicates presence of adulterant), and several other factors ( of which I have never heard of ). The fact remains that these states are addressing our quality of “pure” honey to avoid fraud to the public.

Our CABA web site is up and running. I would like to thank Dick Brickner for his efforts “above and beyond the call of duty”. If you have pictures or articles or any local news that you would like to have included, please let him know. His e-mail address is on the website at www.columbiaareabeekeepers.com. Hopefully, our CABA calendar of events (forthcoming) will be on the site as well.

I had an interesting call this past week from the Elephant Sanctuary in Howenwald. It seems that they have a need for honey. She had seen our website and made contact with me. Unfortunately, I called her back too late and she found some from another beekeeper who delivered it that same day. I assume that she was using it for medicinal purposes. NABA had an article where a combination of beeswax andhoney were used to heal wounds on a sea turtle! Or maybe she was putting it on their corn flakes, hah hah! I have given her my number, but if you want to contact her ask for Cathy at (931) 796-6500 ext. 1 help.

At our last meeting Dan Purvis was our guest speaker. He and his wife, Rosie, were terrific! CABA booked 30 or more queens from him and Rosie said that the 1st of Jan. would be the cut-off date, but you may still try and order some. Once again, our co-op buying power has prevailed and we got the queens for around $19.00 instead of $25.00. The list of beekeepers that have booked includes the following:
Jack-5 Jamie L.-5 Tom Voss-2 Wesley D.-3 Gene Graham-3 Sheila Barho-2 Don Lockhart-5
Now, these do not add up to thirty, but Tom Voss is supposed to have a list of the initial order. The costs should still be $19.00.

Brushy Mountain has a new promotion: for any orders placed in 2009 you can get a free hive tool by mentioning the code FHT. One per family, please.

I am still missing the name of a new member that signed up in September. Will & Rose Rainey gave me their dues and I think that the other member was a Joe ????? something. I am so swamped at the end of the meeting that I was remiss in writing his name down. Sorry. Please let me know who you are.

NABA will be having their Introductory Bee Course this March. It will be for four days, March 25-27 from 6:00 -9:00 p.m. and on Sat the 28th from 9:00 to 2:00 p.m. They have always had an extensive workshop and I would encourage anyone to attend. It is free and you do not have to be a member. It might give us some good ideas for our workshop.

I have recently accepted a job with the Kroger Company and will not be able to attend the Tennessee Beekeeper course. Don Lockhart expressed an interest, because he was not able to get in, but if he declines, the cost will be $65.00. This is half of the original cost. Please, let me know.

Finally, there were two new beekeeping books mentioned in the ABJ this month. The first is Beekeeping: A Discussion of the Life of the Honeybee, by Everett Franklin Phillips retail $29.95. The second one is The Honey-Bee: Its Nature, Homes and Products by William Hetherington retail $19.95. These may be purchased at 1-800-APPLE12 or online at
bookorder@awb.com. Both of these would be interesting additions to your library.
We will be discussing the coming year at this month’s meeting. There are a lot of decisions that must be made and I hope that you all will be able to attend. Thanks for being a part of the Columbia Area Beekeepers Association.

P.S. Florida is now over run with SHB. Some of their beetle traps are catching 500 per day!