Wilson County Beekeepers

Meeting Minutes – 2 July 2012

Seventy-three members and guest were welcomed by Carey Mitchell, President of the Wilson County Beekeepers at the July 2^nd meeting.

• Minutes of the June picnic were approved.  The question of the day—Approximately when do drones become sexually mature—was correctly answered by Margaret Cantrell (12 days—check your membership book)

• Roy & Melissa Everidge handed out t-shirts for those who ordered.  Twenty additional shirts were purchased by the Association and available at $15 each for those interested.

• Carey thanked everyone for their HomeSafe donations at the picnic and read a letter from the director Rebekah Cothran.  The jacket we raffled off ($94.00 collected) was won by Arlis Swafford.

• Conference scholarship signup continued and the Fair Schedule was available for anyone wishing to man the Honey Show booth at the fair.  Donation bears were available for anyone wishing to provide honey for the fair booth.  If any are left over, they will be sold for $5.00 per dozen.  Hopefully we won’t have many left.  Still requesting items for the ‘raffle basket’ at the fair, including jars of labeled honey.

• There were some new books added to the library and thanks to Kim Walter, we had several donated.  Remember, they need to be returned the next meeting so everyone can use them.

• Mike Studer had been involved in a bad accident and injured his back.  He was trying to go the the office for one or two days a week.

• We are trying to put together a Producer’s list for those folks that have honey for sale.  Please let Petra know, as we are getting calls in weekly for honey.

• Petra had been in touch with The National Honey Board, and Andrea Brening stated that individuals can contact them for recipe cards and brochures for distribution (free of charge) by just contacting them.  You can go to www.nhb.org or call them at 303-776-2337.

Fred Dawson gave his monthly To Do’s:

• Inspect at least once for congestion, queen right, stores
• Nectar Dearth — never let colony get below 15 lbs.
• Prevent robbing — reduce entrance if necessary
• Heat—Ventilation needed
• Make water available — sticks will prevent drowning and give bees a platform
• Remove supers — DO NOT get greedy — bees come first, sugar costs more
• Put supers back on hives — let bees handle them
• Remember to donate some honey to our Fair Fund raising event
• READ

We had an informative power point presentation on Top Bar Hives by Steve Buckner and Greg Tomerlin (Walk and Roll Productions) with many questions answered.

The evening’s door prizes were given out:  a queen from Hardiman’s was won by Tony Mercante, Allen Persinger won the bee brush, and the Stepping Stone done by Peter Klaes was won by Andrew Robinson.

Meeting adjourned at 8:10 for refreshments provided by the membership and fellowship.

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Respectfully submitted:  Petra Mitchell, Secretary/Treasurer—Wilson County Beekeepers Association, July 5, 2012.