THIS MONTH’S MEETING IS AT THE BEAVER LAKE PICNIC SITE – NOT THE BRENTWOOD HALL
Sorry to put this in all caps, but I’d hate to have anyone drive to Brentwood only to find the hall locked and dark…
This month’s meeting is our
- Summer Social: Beaver Lake Picnic area (See map below)
- Thursday, August 14th, 6:30 – 8:30 pm (Still the second Thursday of the month as always!).
Cake (with a gluten-free option), ice cream, and beverages will be provided. Feel free to bring your own snacks or food if you wish, BUT – no barbecues!! And DO bring your own lawn chairs!
The meeting will be informal. Don Lambert will be doing a demo of how to do an alcohol wash for mites, and a demo on how to do a brood break split. There will also be small groups held to have arguments discussions about various topics. If you have a burning question, ask it! See how many opinions you get!
Saanich Fall Fair – VOLUNTEERS STILL NEEDED!!!
Every year the Saanich Fall Fair happens over the Labour Day weekend on the Saanich Fairgrounds on Stelly’s Cross Road. And every year the club has a booth at the fair, with a demonstration hive generously donated by Don Lambert, and some presentation materials. People, especially the kids, get a thrill from watching the bees and finding the queen! WE STILL NEED VOLUNTEERS!!!
- For setup on August 22nd and
- To staff our booth during the actual fair over the Labour Day weekend
PLEEEEEASE help out!! It’s a lot of fun and, if you do, you get a free admission bracelet so you can look around after your 2-hour shift! If you’re willing, please text Laure Newnham at 250-857-1952 to let her know. Include your name, shift availability, and address (so the wrist band can be mailed to you). If you can’t text, then call her.
Website Difficulties
Some of us ran into difficulties accessing the website over several days this last month, getting the message that the site had “exceeded its bandwidth” and having everything freeze up. This has been rectified. The cause of this was ‘webcrawlers’. What the heck are they? Well, you know how easy it is these days to type a question or request into Google, Firefox, or other search engine? And how great it is to get a list of sites that can help you? Well, these search engines use webcrawlers to forage through the Internet to find sites and catalogue their contents to enable those searches. And we moved our website to a new company, so these little bots glommed onto our site as a new find and combed through it. Meticulously. And there are several search engines, so it overloaded our website server. But that should be finished now, and you should NOT have any further difficulties. If you do, please let me know!! And I’ll let Werner, our WebWizard, know about it. Email me at president@capitalregionbeekeepers.ca.
Seasonal To-Dos
- Get rid of those mites!!! Oxalic acid vaporization will NOT get rid of an infestation, it will simply control the mite population if it’s already controlled. I’ve had stunning success this season with oxalic acid in glycerin strips as posted in the March 2025 newsletter; if you can’t locate it, go to our website www.capitalregionbeekeepers.ca and click on ‘News’ in the top banner, scroll down to the March President’s message – A reminder: this treatment is not yet officially approved in Canada. Or, you can use Formic acid which, unlike oxalic, penetrates into brood cells, but make sure you remove honey supers if you do. Same with Apivar if you’re going to use that. Whatever you do, get your mites under control or hopefully eradicated – or you won’t have enough winter bees to last through the winter and your hive will collapse in Jan-Feb…
- Raiding is escalating. Hives have precious stores of food, and the days are getting shorter. Other hives, and wasps, will go for a weakened and/or unprotected hive. Definitely use at least some entrance reducers if not hive gates, or other gizmos to protect your hives! Their cost is minimal compared to the cost of replacing your bees!
- Get your honey equipment ready! It will soon be time to extract and bottle your golden harvest, so:
- Reserve an extractor (through our website; click on ‘Club’ in top banner, then ‘Buy, Sell, Rent or Hire‘ and partway down page click on ‘Honey Extractor‘. You’ll need to log in to the members-only side.
- Make sure you have enough jars and lids. If you don’t, get ’em NOW. Remember, everyone else will be looking, too, and you’re also in peak canning season so the demand is high!
Happy beekeeping!