All meetings on Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. October 19 and November 16 are at the OSU Extension office in Newport
See our newsletter for the updated calendar and schedule or our full list of presenters and topics for 2024.
September’s meeting featured Randy Oliver – Concepts in Varroa Management. See the Presenters page for the Zoom link to his presentation.
Saturday, October 19: Dr. Dewey Caron (Emeritus Professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, University of Delaware, and Affiliate Professor, Department of Horticulture, OSU): “Winter Hive Preparations”.
Saturday, November 16: Annual Meeting (Election of Officers, Plans for Next Year)
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
By Jeremy Egolf
Resiliency (“the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties”) isn’t a word I often see associated with backyard beekeeping, but it’s inherently embedded inmuch that we do. Whether we’re testing and treating for Varroa mites, choosing locally bred bees, or planting native flowers that bloom in early spring or late summer for apis mellifera and the regional pollinators, we’re really focused on encouraging resiliency in the face of the challenges our little friends face. What brought this to mind is the recent double hurricane whammy that hit the southeast United States (my niece made it through OK), and how amateur beekeepers can’t solve the large systemic problems, but we can contribute in our small way to enhancing our own regional viability in the face of predictable uncontrollability.
For example, the highlight of our September meeting was Randy Oliver’s talk, “Concepts in Varroa Management”, for which see the detailed report herein. One of the foundations of Varroa management is breeding resistant bees, an area in which Randy has had some success. This newsletter includes references to Russian bee breeding, pollinator-friendly vegetation for utility-level solar photovoltaic installations, varroa treatments, as well as further material on the tropilaelaps mite.
In my own small world, we note with pleasure that the early autumn rains are greening the grass (some pollen is still being collected). Based on the avid consumption of fava bean nectar by fog belt bumble bees as well as our honey bees, we planted some 200 square feet of fava beans, and the initial planting are already emerged a couple of inches above the soil. I’d started a formic acid treatment back in September based on the mite presence of about two per hundred bees; my sense that I was outdoing it was effectively suppressed by Randy Oliver’s recommendation that this is a fine time to be fighting the mites; the plan is to hit them again with oxalic vapor over the end of year holidays. Excess supers have been removed from our hives and frames are being refurbished for the coming spring. Hives are being hefted to calibrate for honey consumption, and insulation, feeders and “moisture boxes” will be added soon.
The above words remind me that our October meeting will feature the venerable Dewey Caron speaking on “Winter Hive Preparations.” See you there!
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Honey Bee Videos from OSU
Carolyn Breece of OSU Oak Creek Apiary fame has put together a video channel with some great stuff on many aspects of the honey bee world. Check it out.
In the Bees with the OSU Honey Bee Lab