Sorry for the last-minute notice. See you next month.
Monthly meeting is May 11
Welcome to May!
Swarm season is upon us and we’re seeing our colonies around the region clearly benefiting from the tremendous spring weather we’ve had.
May Meeting Schedule: Owing to constant room scheduling conflicts, we’ll be meeting on Mothers’ Day this year.
Please join us Sunday, May 11, beginning at 12:00 noon at the Port Angeles Library.
Agenda: We’ll start with “What’s Happening in the Hives” along with “Tips & Tricks” followed by the monthly Q&A session, so bring questions for discussion. We’ll follow with a quick business meeting for the monthly reports and any new business.
The presentation this month, (Evaluating Treatment Effectiveness, 1:00 - 2:00pm) will build upon keeping our bees healthy and will offer something for our more advanced beekeepers as well as our beginners. This is a critical time of year to be aware of numerous factors that affect colony health further down the line. To this end, we’ll explore the application, timing, and effectiveness of the many options available to eliminate losses and minimize the harm caused by Varroa.
Hope to see you there !
~ greg
Meeting coming up April 13
Our April meeting will be on Sunday the 13th at noon in the Port Angeles Library (Carver Room). Hope to see you there.
Agenda:
* What’s Happening in the Hives
* Tips and Tricks - Installing Bees (Mark)
* Open Q&A
* General Business & Discussion - Proposed 2025 bylaw updates & swarm listing policy
Main Presentation
* The Craft of Bee-Lining (Rex Roberton)
March 9 meeting on all things Varroa
Our meeting will be at the regular time and place, 12 noon at the PA main library. Greg’s summary:
“Following a short business meeting, the presentation topic this month will be "pests & diseases". We'll briefly review a few of the older (now less common) problems, then switch the emphasis to Varroa. Specifically, we'll take a look at what Varroa is, how they damage our bees and how we can view monitoring as another one of our beekeeping tools. Finally, I'd like to discuss pros and cons for the numerous management options.
I’m hoping it will be a fairly thorough introduction for beginners as well as a useful refresher for our old pros.”
Minutes of January meeting
Here’s a link to the minutes, which is a pdf. Thank you Jamie!
February meeting won’t be at the usual date and time
Reminder: The Februrary meeting will be on Sunday the 16th at 11 am. At least the location is the same — PA Library.
We will have a presentation on Mason bees which is timely since they will be waking up about that time.
Upcoming webinars on bees and polinators, from various university extension services
If you're thinking about bees but not ready to peek inside your hives, here's a list of upcoming bee and pollinator webinars pointed out by WSU's Bri Price (including the two mentioned in Mark Urnes's email the other day).
February 2025 Meeting Re-scheduled
The regularly scheduled February meeting for the second Sunday had to be rescheduled to the THIRD Sunday.
Our February meeting will be held Sunday, February 16 at 11:00am at the library.
Please note the time also had to shift from noon to 11:00am.
January 12 meeting, February classes
A couple of reminders from Mark:
We will be meeting this Sunday, January 12th at noon in the Port Angeles Library. The education topic of the meeting will be mid-winter hive maintenance.
The Beginning Beekeeping course at Peninsula College is open for enrollment. Classes begin the evening of February 4 and run through March 4. Please see their community education site to sign up.
Coming up at the Nov. 10 meeting — Brood: Signaling and Development
Greg will present on communication signals that various stages of brood use to regulate colony nutrition, the nurse bee to forager transition, and the role brood pheromones play in the seasonal transition to our longer lived winter bees.
Also, election of officers for 2025.
October meeting, including special topic: Mason bees
Mark’s note: I hope you are enjoying the most beautiful weather of the year but hope you will be able to come to the PA Library for our October meeting this Sunday at 12 noon.
We will have a special guest presentation. Carrie Morlang of Knox Cellars Mason Bees will present a lecture on the Orchard Mason Bee and the harvesting of cocoons to store over winter.
We will also have a short business meeting and will accept names for people who want to serve on the Board, particularly the President. If you are interested, please let me know.
Start preparing your bees for winter. Some of mine are taking sugar syrup, some are not. Also think about insulating to some extent, whether just some rigid foam on the top or a full wrap insulation blanket. We'll touch on this topic more at the November meeting.
Earlier time for Aug. 11 meeting
ICYMI, part of Mark’s latest email:
We are kind of scheduled to meet at the Port Angeles Library this coming Sunday, August 11th. Unfortunately, the original reservation was lost when the reservation system changed earlier this year and another group snuck in and reserved the room at our usual 12:00 noon time. I have reserved the room from 11-12 so if you can arrive a little earlier, that would be great. We can then migrate out to the yard and finish up and/or take a field trip up to my place for a summer inspection of the hives at my place.
This will be the last meeting before the Clallam County Fair (Aug. 15-18th) and if you signed up to work, I will have your admission ticket at the meeting. I've attached the sign-up sheet as a reminder. If you find you are unable to work, please contact me. Also, we could use a few more people for the evening shift Th, Fri and Sat. If you can work but are unable to attend the meeting, please let me know so I can send you the ticket.
Looking forward, next month will offer our annual picnic and Marshall and BJ have generously offered to host. We will meet at 12 noon at 361 Lisel Lane in Port Angeles. Plan to bring a salad or dessert to share and the club will provide the main course and beverages.
The remainder of the meetings this year should be at the normal time (2nd Sunday, noon).
New date for July meeting: 7-7
A message from Mark: Because of an unforeseen circumstance, our meeting of the 14th will not be possible and the Board has decided to move the July meeting forward to July 7th at 12 noon in the Port Angeles Library. I apologize for the late change, but we felt it would be better to move it forward instead of cancelling. The education session will concern Preparing Your Hives for the Winter. It seems too early but this is when you have to start getting things in order.
I hope your hives have recovered from the nectar dearth of the last month or so. It seems that they are finding plenty now so, fingers crossed, we may have a pretty good honey year.
Looking forward, we have the Lavender Festival at Victor's Lavender Farm on the 19-21 of July, then the Clallam County Fair Aug 15-19
I hope you can make the new date. Our August meeting will be held on Aug. 11 and the topic of discussion will be honey extraction.
June meeting and upcoming field visit
The monthly NOPBA meeting next Sunday, June 9th at 12:00 noon in the Port Angeles Library. The listed topic of discussion is Varroa treatment but as that has taken up much of the last few meetings, we may touch on other topics of interest.
Mark adds this note of caution about caring for your bees right now:
“The bees have had a spell of bad weather to contend with and I would remind you that feeding is a good idea now. I have hives that are going through 1 quart in a matter of hours. I checked to see if they were just storing in away but the nectar stores are almost non-existent so I think they are just very hungry because of the nectar dearth and the poor flying weather. Robbing may also be a factor but none of my hives seem to have more stores than the others (visiting bees?).”
Also: Rex Robertson has invited the club to his bee yard for another visit. This will take place on Saturday, June 22nd at 12:00 noon. Location is 4923 Mt. Pleasant Road in PA. Rex always has interesting things to see, both in the hives and also in their beautiful gardens. Please plan to attend. He also included this link on Summer Brood Interruption that he spoke of in March: https://youtu.be/a4wCBHNLKL8?si=cc9HbbLcjNmTlL9n
June Field Event
Rex Roberton is planning to host a club visit to be held at his apiary on Mount Pleasant Road, Saturday, June 22. Stay tuned for details.
Field visit is delayed again -- now May 11 in new location
Mark and Greg have put off the field visit scheduled for today due to rainy weather again :( .
Here’s Mark’s note:
Hi all,
I'm sorry to disappoint, but after talking with Greg, we feel it would be best to wait until next week to hold the Field Day. It's pretty cold and wet for a bee rodeo and they would surely let us know it.
Next week, I will be unavailable but Marshall has generously offered to host at his place, 361 Lisel Lane in Port Angeles (up Deer Park Rd.) at noon next Saturday, May 11th.
Thank you for your understanding.
Mark
Delayed on account of rain - now May 4 // Field-day visit to two PA apiaries on April 27
Mark sends this last-minute notice about an apiary visit this weekend (and moving the date of the May meeting):
“It's short notice but I would like to invite you all to a Field Day next Saturday, April, 27th. We will meet at my place (1018 Tamarack Lane, PA) at 11 am and go over some basic steps in a hive inspection, including demonstrating mite treatments and a mite wash. Then we will travel across the field to Greg's bee yard (5403 S. Mt. Angeles Rd.) to see what his hives have been up to.
“Greg is looking to downsize his apiary and would like to sell some (3-4) nucs. If you didn't get your bee order in, this will be a great opportunity to speak with him about getting some.
“As always, this is weather dependent so if things go bad, I'll send an update on Sat. morning.
“MAY MEETING: Since we generally hold our meetings on the second Sunday of the month, May is a problem with the Mother's Day conflict. This year we will push the May meeting back a week to May 19th. Please make a note and I'll try to send a reminder.”
Topics for meeting on Sunday April 14
From Mark:
”Topics of note will be the installation of your newly arrived packages, Spring mite treatments (sorry Greg), sign-up for the Lavender Festival, sign-up for mentoring and sign-up for the swarm list.
I hope your bees had a period of good weather to get them started. Now it's not so good so keep an eye on the food situation.
Hope to see you Sunday.
Mark
P.S. For those who do the Facebook, the WA State Beekeepers have an on-going series of speakers and one of the most recent is Dewey Caron speaking on winter hive death. If you've had issues with that, he gives some answers. Just search for WASBA in Facebook.
Several hive boxes, etc., offered in Sequim
Joanne in Sequim is giving away some some bee gear because they're moving. She wrote:
"Is there anyone who would like to look at our equipment and take some or all of it? We have three brood boxes with covers, several supers, and lots of frames."
Anyone interested can email her at the2farmers@hotmail.com.
Beginning Beekeeping class and more, at Peninsula College
See Greg’s post under the Education tab for details on the Beginning Beekeeping course and a one-time class on swarm behavior and management.