Queen's Castle Beekeepers Assoc.

12th Minutes for the Queen’s Castle Beekeepers Assoc.

October 29, 2011

       21980 U. S. Hwy 29, Andalusia, AL  36420, 334-222-0751/376-9824

    The minutes from last month were read and accepted as is.

     Old or Ongoing Business: 

     We did not cover this due to the nature of the BBQ picnic atmosphere

     New Business:

    The meeting did not officially begin until after our meal.  Everyone was very active helping the Blount's and talking about different aspects

of working with bees.  So there was a very relaxed atmosphere and tremendously good food shared by all.

We had a good discussion about what to do for our bees during this time of year.  The members from Florida and South Alabama still

have many flowers blooming and waiting to remove the honey before colder weather, while others farther North have already go the bees set up

for the winter.   Rule of thumb is if there are plenty of flowers for the bees to work, let them make as much honey and winter stores as possible. You

want the brood box completely filled to give them the best possible chance of getting through the winter. And if you find out that all the frames

are not full when you take the suppers off, look hard at putting the bees in a smaller hive for the colder weather. It could be an 8 frame nuke or a

5 frame brood box. Reduce the opening during colder weather helps the bees protect the hive better. Your sugar syrup this time of the year

should be 2 parts sugar to I part of water. Then 30 days before flowers start blooming again in the spring you start feeding 2 parts water to I

part sugar as a feed. This gives the bees the additional water they need and the sugar so the queen can begin laying eggs.

Because ofloss of some hives, we wanted to know how to determine that the queen in the hive has died? OJ said there are many indicators,

but usually you can tell if there are only a few bees working the hive and you do not see any pollen being brought into the hive. So, it is

important to spend time with your bees watching and learning from them.

OJ mentioned about building a temporary building like a green house just behind his and Lucy's house. It will be constructed out of boards

and plastic and will be warm and big enough to fit our growing club. We did not mention it in the meeting, but we sat on new chairs the

Blount's purchased for the club. When the weather turns warmer we can move back up under the pole bam meeting place where we started our

club.

We also talked about what you do to store you honey suppers until next spring. Stack you suppers with a top and bottom on them to seal

them as tight as possible to keep insects and other pest out. Jason mentioned that he and Donna put them in trash bags with some mothball

flakes sprinkled inside. Joel Blount gave a suggestion of placing newspaper on top of the supper and sprinkles the flakes on top of that. The

fumes go down through the paper into the suppers to drive out the insects, especially the wax moth. A sealed room of some sort works best.

And OJ and Lucy mentioned using a cookie pan filled with water and a thin coat of oil lying on the top of the water. Then hang a black light

within inches of the oil. All the flying insects that attack our boxes end up trapped in the oil instead of our boxes.

Now is when you can be doing everything you can to have success next year. You can be building your Queen's Castle hives to put your

swarms in. You can be planting the clovers that will be blooming next spring. You can be planting all the other plants that need to put in your

bee environment to help them to be stronger colonies. Our success starts today with us taking stock in what we have and deciding what needs to

be changed to the beekeepers of tomorrow.

Elmore Herman will be with us next month. He will take your orders at Millie Bee and deliver them to us at the November meeting with no

freight charges. So take a look at what you need and get the order in.

It was a great meeting of fellowship and training. And Pastor Cross became our first member to join for the upcoming year. January will start

our new year as a club and time to start paying our dues once again. We currently have 29 members and are one of the largest clubs in the state.

In attendance today was: Lucy and OJ Blount, Joel Blount, Keith Robinson, Jason Piland, Robert Thrower and his daughter Caymond Hodge,

Gary and Vick Barrow with their brother Carlton Barrow, William and Carol Cross, Jane and Joseph Spicciari, and Ken and Sue Holman.

Keith Robinson, Sec/Tres

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