General Meeting (June 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 – 7:00pm
  • New Beekeepers Corner – Don L (Lower Hall)
    • Topic: TBD or pepper him with questions!
  • Intermediate+ beekeepers corner – Carolyn H
    • Topic: Under-rated equipment; bring an example if you can!
• 7:00pm – 8:00pm
  • Honey judging – Larry L and Irene T
    Learn about the attributes of great honey!
  • Raising queens – Don L
  • What to do this Month – Larry L
  • Club business and any miscellaneous Q&A – Bill C
• 8:00pm+ – Social (coffee/tea/nibbles; don’t forget to bring your mug)
  Have some time to talk with each other, ask questions of the presenters…
• 9:00pm – Close

Minutes

• Honey Judging;
  • Larry L
    • Learn the rules/regs of each fair, they are different
    • Enter one form for each class that you enter
    • Liquid honey, what is judged? Glass jar, lid, – clean, lint free, no chips, dents
    • Level of fill – no gap, all jars uniformly filled,
    • Clarity – glow, sparkling clear, no cloudiness, no crystals
    • Cleanliness – no bubbles, froth, wings, dust, no foam
    • Color – based on class entered (white, gold, amber, dark)
    • Favor – not burnt, caramelized, no fermentation
    • Density –
    • Classes – 4 (above), frame, granulated, creamed, comb, chunk, beeswax
    • Tags – names revealed once judging complete, free advertising!
    • Entries are delivered & set up by the bee keeper
  • Irene T
    • Enteries are awarded 1-100 pts
    • Judges use white gloves while judging
    • Uniformity of jar = 5 pts
    • Uniformity of fill level = 5 pts
    • Color = 5 pts
    • Clarity = 15 pts
    • Brightness = 10 pts
    • Flavor & aroma = 10 pts
    • Density = 15 pts, anything above 18.6 is disqualified
    • Color charts can be found online & purchased, relatively inexpensive.
• Swarm Collecting: Carolyn H
  • Know your limits, you will be given as much info as possible; if you feel you can’t collect, call the swarm organizer for help
  • Mentors are available if needed
  • Be polite to landowner and observers
  • Ask before cutting branches, etc
  • Leave a box behind to collect stragglers
• Raising Queens: Don L
  • A whole course in itself!
  • A miracle of genetic evolution
  • Queens I Have Known – Robert Picard (Youtube videos)
  • Only job is to lay eggs, and the queen does this for up to 4 years
  • Queen is responsible for the total control of the population of the colony
  • All fertilized eggs become female, unfertilized eggs will be male
  • Why do bees make a queen? 1. To swarm(planned), 2. to replace a failing queen(planned), 3. In an emergency (done as an afterthought, likely not the highest quality queen)
  • How do bee keepers convince the bees to make a queen? 1. Split a colony, 2. Capitalize on a swarm (high quality queens), 3. Tap into emergency/supercedure instinct with queen raising startups (high quality queens)
  • Typically Queen rearing colonies are set up with LOTS of young nurse bees (using open larvae to draw nurse bees up) high quality nutrition and perfect aged larvae (4 days old max)
  • Larvae can be transferred into plastic Queen cell cups, or Queens can be sequestered to areas so that they can only lay eggs in certain cells.
  • Once Queen cells are capped, they can be transferred to mating Nucs or incubators.
  • Once Queen cells open, Virgin Queens must then fly out and mate. They must find a DCA and mate with 15-20 drones (males)
  • DCA’s are specifically designed to minimize “inbreeding” and maximize outbreeding and “shuffle” genetics.
  • Usually virgins will do mating flight(s) at about day 5, and they may take another week or more before beginning egg laying. New Queens may lay more than one egg per cell initially till the get it all figured out, then can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day!!
• Coffee & social