We will hold our first meeting of the year on Monday, February 13, 2017, at 7 pm at the Public Library in Nashville. The major topic of discussion will be preparing for spring. Anyone interested in bees and beekeeping is welcome to attend. Anyone interested in starting a new hive can learn lots about bees and beekeeping. No dues, no requirements. Just come and learn.
Our next meeting will be Monday, June 13, at 7 pm, at the Brown County Library in Nashville. Tony Gaudin will give a report on the recent meeting of the Indiana Queen Breeders Association, and the effort to make genetically superior queens available to more beekeepers in Indiana. The main topics for discussion will be swarm management, honey collection, and increase in the number of your hives.
Our next meeting will be April 11th, 7pm at the library in Nashville.
By most measures, spring is ahead of schedule this year. Dandelions are blooming, so you should have supers on your colonies by now. When I looked at my colonies on March 26th, I saw plenty of drone comb, so I believe we’ll see early swarms this year. Usually May is the peak swarm month, but I’m hearing of beekeepers in Louisville already seeing swarm cells, so we could easily have mid-April swarms. If you’re planning on putting out swarm traps, you need to do that right away.
The Bee Informed Partnership Colony Loss and Management survey is now Live. There are actually two surveys: 1) to measure colony losses over winter and 2), a survey of your bee management techniques. We want to encourage you to take these surveys, regardless of how many colonies you have. The more data collected, the more accurate the results will be. Click here: https://beeinformed.org/participate/
Our next meeting will be March 14th, 7pm at the Library.
We’ve had a few warm days in February – hopefully you’ve had a chance to check your bees, and make sure they have sufficient stores to get them through these last few weeks until spring. The queen should be laying by now, and raising brood will exhaust their stores rapidly.
The willows and maples are usually some of the earliest sources of pollen, but stretches of bad weather may keep the bees inside. Make sure your bees have enough to eat!
At our March meeting we will talk about installing packages & nucs, along with general spring management. Bring plenty of questions!
The BIG NEWS for the coming year is the establishment of our new consolidated statewide organization. The Beekeepers of Indiana will now include the combined memberships of the now defunct clubs: Indiana Beekeepers Association, and Indiana State Beekeepers Association. At their Fall meetings, the memberships of both groups voted overwhelmingly to formally disband the separate organizations, and join together in our efforts to promote beekeeping and beekeepers throughout the state of Indiana. We will include a link to the new organization here, as soon as their new web site is up and running. Until the new website is available, you can still register for the combined Bee School on February 27th at the following link: http://www.indianabeekeeper.com/contact_us/indiana_bee_school
Although you may have seen something in the Farm Indiana newspaper insert that circulates statewide, the 10 o’clock Beekeepers WILL NOT meet in January. We have always taken November, December and January off while the bees are clustered in the hive. Our next meeting will be on Monday, February 8, 2016, at 7 pm, at the Public Library in Nashville.
We are having an unseasonably warm “winter” ………… so far. Don’t forget to check to see if your bees might need some emergency food in the form of “sugar blocks” or “candy blocks” to get them through until the dandelions and maples start blooming.
Our two statewide associations, the Indiana State Beekeepers Association (ISBA) and the Indiana Beekeepers Association (IBA) are holding their last fall meetings of the year. These meetings could (should) be the last official meetings of both organizations, because the memberships will be asked to approve a plan to consolidate the two organizations into a single, united, group that serves and speaks for all beekeepers in Indiana. One organization (rather than two) will make it more efficient and cost effective to provide information and education to beekeepers, lawmakers, and the public, as well as work with other organizations, businesses, and state agencies. We believe the combined talents of both organizations will be better able to provide more programs and education than each organization can individually.
We encourage any 10 o’clock Beekeepers who might be members of these organizations to attend their respective meeting and vote to approve the consolidation of the two organizations.
Our last meeting of 2015 will be held at 7 pm, on Monday , October 12, on the lower floor of the Library in Nashville. The major topic of discussion will be getting ready for winter. There will be a live demonstration of how to prepare a sugar board for emergency winter feeding of the hive. The completed sugar board will be given to one of the attendees as a door prize. Anyone interested in bees or beekeeping is welcome to attend — free of charge. We especially encourage anyone interested in starting a hive next spring. We have several experienced beekeepers in the group who can serve as mentors for “newbees.”
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