General Meeting (June 2020)

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

Due to COVID-19 we will not be meeting in person. Instead, we will be hosting an online Zoom meeting.

Agenda

• 7pm – Regular meeting
  • Welcome – Bill F
  • Zoom etiquette – Brent L
  • Colony growth – Part One – Gerry R
  • What are beekeepers doing in June/July – Larry L
  • Colony growth – Part Two – Gerry R
  • Just so you know – All
  • What’s in bloom – Simon L
  • Swarms – Peter D
  • Outyard tags – Brad A
  • Sign-off

Minutes

Meeting started at 7:03pm.

• Bill Fosdick (President of the CRBA) welcomes everyone to the CRBA online meeting. Swarms, dearth and bears are in the news. Presents overview of agenda.
• Zoom Review
  Brent Lee gives an overview of Zoom and its operation.
• Colony Growth Presentation by Gerry Rosema
  • Bill introduces Gerry
• Gerry presents the first half of his presentation.
  • Mite count poll
• Larry
  • Nectar flow is on – need more supers
  • Story – 6 Foot cockroach
  • Get extracting equipment in order
  • Are all colonies queenright
  • Queen performance
  • Queen rearing
  • Move to fireweed?
  • Think about farm markets
  • Think about trapping pollen and propolis
  • May need to feed before moving to forest lands
  • Large colony can use 7 to 10lbs of honey a day.
  • Take supers off due to weight if moving to outyards.
  • Do your mite checks before moving to outyards.
  • Check for queenright
  • Keep 1 nuc for every 10 colonies (insurance)
  • Keep swarm catching equipment ready to go.
  • Question from Bill – should we always expect queen cells in hives?
  • Larry answers “not necessarily if they have room” That is unless you have an old or failing queen
  • Question from Bill – Why would your hive swarm twice in 2 days?
  • Answer from Larry – usually first virgin queen kills others, but sometimes a 2nd queen emerges and one of them takes a 2nd swarm.
• Poll on beekeeping experience
• Gerry continues his presentation
• Questions:
  • Can we run more than one year with the tool? Not answered.
  • Why are main reasons growth is slow/inconsistent in spring? Many factors in play.
  • What about oxalic drizzle? Larry – Approx. 18% of brood will be lost. With vapour it is miniscule. Keep honey supers off. 5mL per frame and no more than 50mL per hive.
  • Hives with capped and uncapped honey – how to treat? Take the honey box off for a day or two to treat.
  • What is a bait hive and where should you put it? Larry answers – 1 frame of old brood comb in a box – 6-8 feet off ground. 1 old brood comb with others if desired.
  • Entrance reducer or not.
• Swarm Season (Presented by Peter Day)
  • Blackberries are flowering and hive full of bees is recipe for swarm.
  • Don’t be afraid to add room.
  • May: 36 swarm calls; 14 bumblebee calls; No wasp calls yet
  • Encouraging members to sign up with apiary locations. Contact Carolyn.
• Mite Vapourizers and Extractors in 3 locations
• Tags for outyards
  • 80 requests – all fulfilled
  • 5 bonus location allocated.
  • Purchase tags online. Purchasers have been sent reminders.
  • Fireweed not blooming yet. We don’t expect anyone out there until July.
• More questions for Gerry
  • What are reasons for inconsistent growth in spring?
    Temperature – need bees to incubate brood. 2 bees to incubate 1 cell.
    Best way to get better growth is to have more bees.
    Add pollen patty when we have hazelnut pollen.
    Would do better with natural, but we can have 10 days where they can’t fly if Feb/Mar. May run out of protein. Sets you back 3 weeks if the cannibalize brood.
  • How long is a pollen patty good for?
    Gerry’s feeling is they are good for as long as they are in hive.
  • Can you put patties in top feeder?
    Bill answers yes.
  • Don asks if we treat on Aug. 15 is there not still a viral load remaining? Should we treat mid-July?
    Gerry doesn’t disagree with that approach.
    Take off supers after blackberry, treat before fireweed. Really low counts going to fireweed. Gerry’s threshold is 1 mite but testing methods are +/-2.
• Bill thanks Gerry and wraps up the meeting at 8:41pm.