General Meeting (April 2022)

The Capital Regional Beekeepers Association (CRBA) meets on the second Thursday of every month.

This meeting usually starts with a beginners/intermediate beekeeper corner 30 minutes before the regular club proceedings start around 7pm.

Agenda

• 6:30 pm – New Beekeeper Corner (Lower Level)
  • Installing a NUC
• 7:00pm – Regular Meeting
  • Welcome – Bill F
  • Orientation for All Members and Thank you
  • Inspecting your frames (and making hard decisions) – Bob L
  • Swarm Wrangling – Don L
  • What to do in April/May – Larry L
  • What’s blooming in your neighbourhood – All
• 8:30pm – Social
• 9:00pm – Close

Minutes

Started with New Bee Keeper Corner & Intermediate Group 6:30 – 7:00

Start 7:10 pm – Welcome! – Bill F

Shared CRBA website which hosts the following information as an orientation to the club:

• About Us; who we are, list of volunteer Board members
• Membership, annual cost of $32
• Current membership – 116; 80 are new members joined in the last two years
• Constitution and by-laws available
• Buy, sell, rent; changes frequently
• News, updates, President messages (also emailed to all members)
• Archives; club began 1973
• Swarm committee; contact Peter Day if interested in getting involved – includes collecting swarms, carry the swarm phone, collect bumble bees
• Monthly meetings, small group meetings will start up again soon
• Zoom access and YouTube recordings
• Socials & events
• Facebook page

Thank you’s! – Bill F

• Simon Lightbody, Secretary for two years
• Carolyn Hisson, 2nd VP for two years

Swarm Wrangling – Don Lambert

• We’re close to the swarm season!
• Why do bees swarm? Driven by instinct to multiply their colonies
• Healthy for bees in terms of genetics, not welcomed by the bee keeper
• Swarming can decrease amount of honey produced
• Hives can swarm more than once
• What are the triggers?
• Crowding is the largest single factor, meaning incorrect ratios, lack of room for queen to lay eggs
• April & May is prime swarm season
• Swarm prevention: not a lot you can do. Inspect colony every 7 days and look for signs…drones, backfilling, crowding in brood nest, old comb, old queen, queen cells
• Add comb/foundation/supers
• Pyramid to build comb, cycle out old comb
• Re-queen hives, young queens swarm less
• Make a swarm control split (sometimes more than one)

Questions:

1. Where should you put a swarm that you catch that is yours?
   Can put in a box, but on other side of the yard. Best to take somewhere else to let them orient of they will go to the old box. If not your bees, don’t know anything about them and can be diseased. Good to quarantine them.
2. What is the ideal temperature to be doing an inspection?
   Should be doing them every 7 days. General rule of thumb, if the bees are flying around its ok. If only a few bees out, look very quickly so as to keep them warm. No specific temp, watch for bees to be out and flying around.
3. After a swarm split, how many queen cells do you leave in the original colony?
   Depends. If you have a couple per frame, start a nuc with one frame. As a general rule, you probably want to
   leave 2 – 3.
4. Can you cut a queen cell out and move to another colony?
   Yes
5. What quality/process for queens that are bought and shipped in the mail?
   If done properly, can be very good quality.

Frames that you have over winter, what to do with them? Heinz K & Bob L

• Show & tell of frames in various conditions, passed around for members to see first hand.
• How to tell if the frame is new vs old? Hold the frame up to the sun and hold your hand behind it. If you can see your hand, time to through out the frame.
• Should frames with evidence of nosema be destroyed? You can scape them, melt out the wax, sterilize the frame and start over.
• Cull warped frames. Wire the frames to prevent warping.
• Mould on the frames, cut/melt the wax out, bleach the frame and then re-use.

Closing – 8:58 pm

Social; Coffee & cookies