General Meeting (April 2023)

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

• 6:30pm
  • New Beekeepers Corner – Don L (Lower Hall)
  • Intermediate+ beekeepers corner – Bill F
• 7:00pm – 8:15pm
  • New lifetime members – Bill C
  • Bird’s eye view of our club membership – Bill C
  • Small group resurrection – Bill C
  • Swarms, or “I don’t know why I say hello, you say goodbye”… – Don L
  • Swarm committee: Organizing club swarm call response – Cindy P & Victoria S
• 8:30pm – Social (coffee/tea/nibbles; don’t forget to bring your mug)
• 9:00pm – Close

Minutes

Slides

7:03 pm – Welcome!

1. Thank you to Bill F, gift presented
2. 3 new lifetime honorary members – Carolyn Hissen, Heinz Kaemmerer & Alanna Morbin
3. Membership demographics – graph shared showing membership levels over 2013 – 2023. Almost 40% of our current membership newly joined this year or last year.
   
4. Small group resurrection – shared 5 small group areas, and showing 3 vacancies (Vic West, Esquimalt, View Royal; Gordon Head)
5. Swarms – Don Lambert:
   – do nurse bees fly? Can they fly or won’t they fly?
   – bees do work in the colony based on their age
   – 3-11 days old they feed jelly to the babies
   – Honeybee Suite; excellent online resource
   – Why do bees swarm?
   – driven by “instinct” to propagate, when the colony is large enough they swarm to create 2 colonies out of one
   – triggers: crowding is the largest factor of bees swarming, not always number of bees but rather incorrect ratio
   – pheromone, (lack of)
   – which bees are in a swarm? Queen, nurse bees, foragers – bulk of the swarm will be nurse bees.
   Sequence of events:
   – Preparation begins weeks before, stop feeding the queen, start making multiple queen cells
   – The bees determine the swarm time, not the queen
   – The swarm moves a few 100 metres from the parent hive, protecting the queen when landed
   – In the parent hive, the new virgin queen will emerge in about 7 days, will make a mating flight, if successfully mated will begin laying eggs 5 days after returning
   Prevention of a swarm, what can you do?
   – look for the signs, drones, back-filling, crowding in the brood nest, old comb, old queens, queen cells
   – back-filling; when food & pollen is being placed in the brood nest
   – add comb/foundation/supers
   – pyramid to build comb
   – cycle out old comb
   – re-queen hives, young queens swarm less
   – make a swarm control Split
   – 3 kinds of queen cells; emergency, supersedure, swarm
6. Swarm committee – list of members willing to attend a swarm call is being collected. Please email swarms@capitalregionbeekepers.ca if you would like to be added to the list.
   Volunteers are expected to assist with collecting swarms, coaching with a swarm collection, and taking call the swarm phone for a day or so over the season.
7. Larry L.:
   April – a busy month! Check for mortality, how much pollen patty may be needed, start weekly inspections, get spare equipment ready, have a spare NUC ready, can be the starvation month so may need to start feeding, start mite treatment in late April, ensure expansion space is available for new nectar to dry, check for swarm cells, check brood combs & replace as needed
8. Close at 8:27 pm