meck bees · preferentially oriented toward the former nest site, despite the experience that...

Meck Bees Mecklenburg Beekeepers Association

Meets the 3rd Thursday of each month at 7 pm at 3100 Selwyn Avenue

(corner of Selwyn and Woodlawn) Mailing address: 121 Hermitage Rd Charlotte NC 28207

704-358-8075 Visit our website at

www.meckbees.org President - Wayne Hansen Vice President - Greg Clements Treasurer - Libby Mack Chaplain - Jimmy Odom

This Month’s Meeting/Program Nov 18th

Richard Flanagan is our guest speaker. He will talk on Skep Beekeeping. It is a part of beekeeping history that many know little about. Come and learn about how skeps are made and used.

This months refreshments

are provided by

Johnny and Linda Preston

November 2010

Answer: A Bee Lining Box

Used to help locate feral bee hives in the wild. Go on the internet to find out about this part of beekeeping history.

What is this type of Bee equipment??

Mecklenburg Beekeepers Association

Attention!

The Western North Carolina Center for Honey Bee Research in conjunction with Buncombe County Beekeepers

invites you to a little late Fall color with an all-day honeybee extravaganza on Saturday November 13, 2010 at the

Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville, NC. "New Frontiers in Beekeeping" will present cutting-

edge perspectives from four of the field's premier experts:

Marla Spivak, renowned Entomologist at the University of Minnesota will talk about "Benefits of Propolis to

Bees" and answer questions about her travels and research. Dr. Spivak is the originator of the Minnesota Hygienic

line of mite resistant stock

Jamie Ellis heads Extension research for the state of Florida and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Flor-

ida at Gainesville. Dr. Ellis oversees a myriad of research projects and will be "Addressing the Plight of the Hon-

eybee." Florida is home to many large scale migratory operations and sits at the cross-roads of the most challeng-

ing questions facing beekeepers today.

Debbie Delaney has recently taken the place of Dewey Caron at the University of Delaware, where she continues

to study the genetic diversity of our bees. Dr. Delaney has been instrumental in conducting surveys of the commer-

cial queen stock on both sides of the Mississippi and is completing a sampling of feral populations along the East-

ern Seaboard. She will discuss "The Secret Lives of Bees in Trees" and tell us a little about her future research.

Jay Evans' work on the possible links between viruses and CCD has made the news in several recent publications.

He is a prominent Research Scientist at the USDA ARS laboratory at Beltsville, Maryland and will be asking "Can

Genomics Lead to Healthier Bees?" He will explain what "genomics" are and shed some light on the important

work being done at our national honeybee labs.

The program begins at 9:30 AM and finishes at 5 PM. Lunch is "on your own" but there are many dining estab-

lishments within easy driving distance. Seating is limited. Cost is $35 per person and pre-registration is required.

Sorry, no refunds.

Asheville is a progressive town at the center of the southern Appalachians, with numerous diversions - so whether

you come for the day or make it a weekend - it will be a memorable occasion. See you there!


Speakers for 2010 Nov -Richard Flanagan Skep Beekeeping Dec - Pot luck Jan 2011 JR Neumiller Organic beekeeping Feb 2011 Cynthia Robinson Honey Straws and Bee

Photography

Beekeepers Yearly Management Calendar for November

Make repairs on your equipment, assemble new equipment, and make some of those time saver gadgets. ( the Jimmy! Comes to mind)

http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/27538

A cool web site that allows you to pan around

various bee photos . Check it out !!!!


Old Bees' Memory Fades;

Mirrors Recall of Humans and Other Mammals

(ScienceDailyOct. 20, 2010) — New research shows that not just human memories fade. Scientists from Arizona State University and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences examined how aging impacts the ability of honey bees to find their way home. While bees are typically impressive navigators, able to wend their way home through complex landscapes after visits to flowers far removed from their nests, aging impairs the bees' ability to extinguish the memory of an unsuitable nest site even after the colony has settled in a new home. The study appears in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science. "From previous studies, we knew that old bees are characterized by poor learning when trained to floral odors in the laboratory," says Gro Amdam, an associate professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "So, we wanted to test whether aging also affects learning behavior that is important for a bee's survival in the wild." A bee is very well-trained as a forager after three to four days of flight time, Amdam says. Whereas mature bees have piloted their way to and from the hive for five to 11 days and old bees have had more than two weeks of flight time. To test how old bees adapt to a changed home location, researchers trained bees to a new nest box while their former nest was closed off. Groups composed of mature and old bees were given several days in which to learn the new home location and to extinguish the bees' memory of their unusable former nest box. The scientists then disassembled the bees' new home and forced groups of mixed-age bees to choose be-tween three alternative nest locations, including the former nest box. Old bees with symptoms of senescence preferentially oriented toward the former nest site, despite the experience that should have told them that it was unusable. "Although many old bees fail in learning tasks, we also discovered that a few still perform with excellence," explains Daniel Münch, lead author of the study and a senior life sciences researcher in Norway. The scientists believe that their findings with bees offer a new means to model and understand the variability found in brain function between individuals; where some individuals' memories remain intact, while others' learning behavior becomes inflexible with age.

Old bees have troubling finding their way to new homes, as learning behavior becomes inflexible with age.


Bees' Tiny Brains Beat Computers, Study Finds

Researchers found that bees could solve the 'travelling salesman's' shortest route problem, despite having a brain the size of a grass seed. Photograph: Rex Features

Bees can solve complex mathematical problems which keep computers busy for days, research has shown. The insects learn to fly the shortest route between flowers discovered in random order, effectively solving the "travelling salesman problem" , said scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London. The conundrum involves finding the shortest route that allows a travelling salesman to call at all the locations he has to visit. Computers solve the problem by comparing the length of all possible routes and choosing the one that is shortest. Bees manage to reach the same solution using a brain the size of a grass seed. Dr Nigel Raine, from Royal Holloway's school of biological sciences, said: "Foraging bees solve travelling salesman problems every day. They visit flowers at multiple locations and, because bees use lots of energy to fly, they find a route which keeps flying to a minimum." Using computer-controlled artificial flowers to test bee behaviour, his wanted to know whether the insects would follow a simple route defined by the order in which they found the flowers, or look for the shortest route. After exploring the location of the flowers, the bees quickly learned to fly the best route for saving time and energy. The research, due to appear this week in the journal The American Naturalist, has implications for the human world. Modern living depends on networks such as traffic flows, internet information and business supply chains.

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 October 2010 21.45 BST


November 2010 With November here it’s time for beekeepers to slow down and take a break, right? It turns out that there is always something to do, another meeting to attend, and more to learn somewhere. This winter should be no exception. If you are still looking for that bee educational fix outside of the monthly magazines and club meetings, then check out the one-day bee class in Buncombe County (Asheville), NC. http://www.wncbees.org/wnccenter/ I’d love to go to this one but my personal calendar has gotten a little full for November, and I’m going to have to pick up leaves at least once. As for myself, I did apply to the second class of the Born & Bred program and was in the group accepted for the class in Piedmont class on Oct 29 and 30. I’m planning to use the information to rear a few (or more) queens next year. And that’s my New Year’s Early Resolution. As announced in last month’s newsletter, the Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association will have a business meeting after the regular program in November. Also promised was more in-formation on the meeting, which will include election of club officers 2011, meeting space for 2011, and the club extractor.

First, the meeting space. Mouzon is willing to let us continue using the hall for our monthly meetings for the rate of $50 per month. Comparable facilities charge significantly more than that. This averages to less than $1 per person in any given month. I recommend we approve. Next, the club extractor. The current club extractor is still functional, but is showing its age and needs perhaps a little more care than it receives. George McAllister has done some research into a possible replacement and we are soliciting some feedback on that from other clubs and knowledgeable individuals. It has also been recommended that the fee to use the extractor be increased to $5 per day effective in 2011, with perhaps also adding a 2-day minimum. This would pay off the extractor more quickly and provide funds for maintenance. And to finish, Officers for 2011. The current candidates are George McAllister for President, Richard Flanagan for Vice-President, and Libby Mack for Secretary/Treasurer. Nominations are still being accepted, so if anyone is interested in running, or would like to suggest a name to the nominating committee, please talk to Gerry Mack, Randall York, Richard Flanagan, or George McAllister. Jimmy Odom is willing to continue as club Chaplain as well. I have greatly enjoyed being president of the Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association, and look forward to being the former president as well. More on that next month. See you around the bee yard! Wayne

President BZZZZZZ


Hanson resident John Phillips decided three years ago that he was going to help his fellow beekeepers by building an extraction room at the Plymouth Country Extension building on High Street. Phillips has been keeping bees since 1974 and has been a member of the Plymouth County Beekeepers Association since 1979, but hasn’t seen the pastime pick up until recently.

The Association held their annual Harvest Day open house last Saturday at the Plymouth County Extension site, where local residents were invited to taste local honey and get a glimpse of the honey extraction process. Several people on hand to get their honey were members of the association’s beekeeper’s school in the spring, which drew a record number this year as more and more people take up the hobby.

“Every year, we see more and more people at the bee school,” Phillips said. “And we have quite a few new members.”

Bees have been in the news in recent years for a rapid population decline that has scientists baffled. That is one of the reasons Teri and Brian Ayre of Whitman took up beekeeping this year. That and the honey.

“I used to buy all my honey from Peaceful Meadows, and I just said ‘Jeez I’m paying all this money, I might as well see if I can do it myself,” said Teri Ayre with a laugh. “I thought it would be great, you get the honey and it’s a great way to help the bee population.”

The Ayres took part in the Association’s largest spring beekeeping course, with more than 50 other South Shore residents involved. So far, they’ve produced over 30 pounds of honey from their two hives, and have more to go.

“The honey you buy in the store is not the same, and it doesn’t have the same [hypoallergenic] effects as the pure honey,” Teri Ayre said. “But there’s a lot more you can get out of the hive than just the honey, I’m going to start doing lotions, lip balms and candles from the beeswax. And you don’t need any space and you don’t need a yard, some people do it on their roofs or decks.”

Sondra Allen of Hanson was also a graduate of this year’s beekeeping school and brought some of her frames to Harvest Day to extract her honey. Allen saw one of the association’s exhibits at the Marshfield Fair that inspired her to give beekeeping a try.

“Everybody just looked so comfortable and I thought I would really like to be able to work around bees and not get stung,” she said. “I got strung once this summer and I was in and out of the hive all the time. And that one time, I was being careless. It’s really cool to be able to work around them and they don’t bother you at all.”

The influx of new beekeepers, like Allen and Ayers, is what prompted Phillips to build the extraction room at the Extension. The cheapest honey extractors are still upwards of $400, and Phillips said he wanted the new beekeepers around to have a place where they can get started.

“It gets expensive, so everyone can just come here,” he said. “Everyone likes to get together and gab anyway, so it’s fun.”

It isn’t just the new hands that show up at the Extension. Ben Natale has been keeping bees for about 15 years, teaches the woodenware portion of the beekeeping school and has stopped by the Extension to extract nearly 150 lbs. of honey this season.

Natale sells his honey at the Marshfield Fair, but got into beekeeping as a way to boost his own garden.

“I grow pumpkins, cucumbers and squash and they all need pollination. I wanted to see if I could get a little more produce out of it through the pollination,” Natale said. “It’s really not that labor intensive, you pretty much want to leave them alone and just keep track of them once in a while.”

Having veteran beekeepers like Natale and Phillips on hand and eager to help is one of the best things about the association, Ayer said.

“The great thing about the club is that they’ll do stuff for the members,” she said. “They are always there to jump in and help someone.”

Ayer and the other beekeepers will be getting ready to winter their bees in the next few months while Phillips and Natale will also be getting ready for another year of beekeeping school starting next January, and Natale for one is hopeful the association will see another big class.

“One of the things that our club is for is to promote beekeeping,” he said. “Since the population crisis, people really seem interested and that is great.”

Bees Are Making Quite A BuzzWritten by Dave Palana Wednesday, 06 October 2010 15:17


It’s Harvest Time!

We have the following equipment available for extracting honey:

Extractor (manual)

• Uncapping tank (use your own excluder)

• Bucket with valve

• Electric uncapping knife

The charge is $2 per day to borrow the extractor.

You will want to use your own filters and food-grade plastic buckets.

To obtain the equipment:

• Call George McAllister to arrange a time to pick it up. Phone: (704) 579-1169 [email protected]

• When you pick up the equipment, take an envelope and card to mail in your payment

• Return the equipment promptly, clean and dry

• Mail your payment in the envelope provided

With the growth of the club, there is heavy demand for the extractor in the summer months. There will be a waiting list, so be prepared for a short wait, and when you get the equipment, please return it promptly so the next person on the list can get it. Please don’t pass it on to someone else who isn’t on the list. Thanks!

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