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BEEKEEPERS' BLOG

Club Events and Info for Bee-Friendly People

August's Monthly Meeting: What to Do About Angry Bees

7/17/2022

 
Date:  Tue, Aug 9, 2022  |  Time: 7 pm  |  Location: Auditorium at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Online on Zoom

Topic: What to Do About Angry Bees

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Once you have kept bees long enough, you will soon discover that your bees can become irritable with you, angry and downright aggressive at times. This presentation attempts to unravel and discover reasons why bees behave this way including breed characteristics, hive environment, beekeeper errors and more. This presentation aims to have you develop a deeper understanding of honeybee behavior and how to troubleshoot issues occurring in your own backyard hives.
The main presentation starts at 7 pm, but feel free to arrive in the auditorium or sign in online starting at 6:30 pm for a beginners Q&A session. See our Facebook page or join via the Zoom link above.
Speaker: Melissa Caughey. Melissa is a backyard chicken keeper, seasoned beekeeper, Master Gardener, crafting maven, culinarian and nurse practitioner. She contributes to HGTV, DIY Network, Angi, Grit Magazine, Community Chickens and Keeping Backyard Bees. She can be found traveling the country presenting on chicken keeping, beekeeping, gardening and crafting at both private and public events including Country Living Magazine Fairs and the Mother Earth News Fairs. Melissa has been featured on NPR and in People Magazine, Reader's Digest, Forbe's Magazine and Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. She also serves as an advisor to A-list celebrities keeping chickens.

Melissa's website has won multiple awards including The Blue Ribbon Blogger Award from Country Living Magazine and Top 10 Gardening Blogs by Better Homes and Gardens Magazine in 2014 and 2016. Her first best-selling book, A Kid's Guide to Keeping Chickens, has won the 2016 Learning Magazine Teacher's Choice Award and the 2016 American Academy for the Advancement of Science's Prize for Excellence in Science Books. Her second book, How to Speak Chicken, has been named as one of 2017's Best Bird and Birding Books by Forbes Magazine and has won Silver in the Foreward INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Pets and Animals Category. Her follow-up book, Chicken Wisdom, features Melissa's original quotes and favorite thoughts bringing inspirational and encouraging messages filled with kindness to the reader released during the start of the pandemic. A 2023 How to Speak Chicken wall calendar releases in July 2022 and look for her new book, My Chicken Family, in early 2023. 

​Melissa calls Cape Cod home, where she lives with her husband, two children and a menagerie of animals. For more, please visit: www.tillysnest.com

​​​Please join us - our monthly meetings are always free and open to the public!​

July's Monthly Meeting: Preparing to Overwinter Your Hives in Michigan

6/19/2022

 
Date:  Tue, July 12, 2022  |  Time: 7 pm  |  Location: Auditorium at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Online on Zoom

Topic: Preparing to Overwinter Your Hives in Michigan

The main presentation starts at 7 pm, but feel free to arrive in the auditorium or sign in online starting at 6:30 pm for a beginners Q&A session. See our Facebook page or join via the Zoom link above.

​NOTE: Please post questions/comments in the Zoom chat. Facebook is not monitored during our educational meetings.
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Speaker: Clay Ottoni. 

From Mr. Ottoni: By profession, I have been an attorney since 1984.

I have been farming for over five (5) decades growing cover crops, row crops, vegetables as well as fruits including fruit trees including apples, cherries, grapefruits, lemons, limes, mulberries, nectarines, oranges, paw paws, peaches, pears, persimmons and plums; small fruits including blackberries, blueberries, currents, elderberries, figs, gooseberries, grapes, haskap berries, jostaberries, juneberries, kiwi, raspberries, and strawberries; nut trees including acorns, allegheny chinkapin, beechnuts, hazelnuts (filberts), hickories, pecans, and walnuts (black and carpathian) and sustainably maintaining honey bee hives for pollination as well as for production of bees, honey, wax, etc. without having to buy any new bees or queens for decades.
I became a Master Gardener (and later as an Advanced Master Gardener and Master Gardener of the Year), by volunteering at Michigan State University Tollgate Education Center  (where I was the recipient of the Golden Shovel Award and, later, the Ginger Meyer Award) helping, for over 20 years, with, among other things, the High Density Orchard (being the Area Leader for over 20 years), Maple Syrup and Beekeeping Programs and the 4H club.

I have also been volunteering for several years with:
  • Beekeeping Clubs including the Michigan Beekeeping Association (for whom I was a board member), the Southeastern Michigan Beekeeping Association (for whom I was a board member and then President and instructor for several years), Ann Arbor Backyard Beekeeping Club (for whom I am privileged to assist Jen Haeger with the field work of the Flow Hive Team and the Team Sunflower) and the Oakland Beekeeping Club (for whom I am the Vice President and instructor), all for whom I made presentations to youth and adults;
  • Michigan Nut and Fruit Growers Association (becoming a Board member and their First Vice President during which I have made educational talks to youth and adults at the State Fair and other gatherings);
  • National Wild Turkey Federation (becoming a member of the Oakland-Macomb County Chapter board volunteering with youth shots and hunts as well as habitat/pollination projects with elementary school classes including presentations to them);
  • Pheasants Forever [becoming a Board member of the Oakland County Chapter, the Jackson County Chapter, Wayne County Chapter and the Thumb Chapter (volunteering with, among other things, youth shots and hunts as well as habitat/pollination projects with elementary school classes including presentations to them) as well as being a State Council member and receiving the Volunteer of the Year Award for both 2012 and 2018];
  • Thumb Branch of NDA f/k/a QDMA (becoming a member of the board and in charge of the habitat restoration program including presentations to youth groups); and
  • Tuscola’s Technical Advisory Committee.

​I am also a member of several other organizations including, but not limited to:
American Soybean Association, Arbor Day Foundation, Michigan Bar Association, Michigan Soybean Association, and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

​​Please join us - our monthly meetings are always free and open to the public!​

June's Monthly Meeting: The Game of Drones

5/13/2022

 
Date: Tuesday, June 14  |  Time: 7 pm  |  Location: Online on Zoom

Topic: The Game of Drones

Honey bee drones are the Rodney Dangerfields of the bee world: they (often) get no respect! Learn all about the amazing drones and their mysterious drone congregation areas (and how to find them using the other kind of drone) at this informative talk.
The main presentation starts at 7 pm, but feel free to sign in starting at 6:30 pm for a beginners Q&A session. See our Facebook page or join via the Zoom link above.

​NOTE: Please post questions/comments in the Zoom chat. Facebook is not monitored during our educational meetings.
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Speaker: ​Julia Mahood is a Georgia Master Beekeeper who has been keeping bees since 2004. She created the citizen science website MapMyDca.com to gather data on drone congregation areas. Julia was awarded the Georgia Beekeeper of the year in 2018.

​A graphic artist, she designed the Georgia “Save the Honey Bee” license plate. She is passionate about education and teaches beekeeping in Georgia prisons and is active in her local and state bee organizations.

​Please join us - our monthly meetings are always free and open to the public!​

Doing the Right Things at the Right Time

5/12/2022

 
Picturehttps://www.honeybeesuite.com
Beekeeping is all about doing the right things at the right time, and a big part of being able to do the right things at the right time is preparation.

For example, don't wait until you see swarm cells to take action to prevent swarming (you're probably too late at that point anyway), but prepare for spring swarms by adding more space or splitting your hives.

Not sure what you need to prepare for? The Beekeeping Calendar from Cornell University is a great resource!

https://pollinator.cals.cornell.edu/sites/pollinator.cals.cornell.edu/files/shared/documents/Beekeeping%20Calendar%20for%20the%20Northeast.pdf

Happy Beekeeping!

May's Monthly Meeting: The Three Things You Need to Get Right to be a Successful Beekeeper

4/15/2022

 
Date: Tuesday, May 10  |  Time: 7 pm  |  Location: Online on Zoom

Topic: ​The Three Things You Need to Get Right to be a Successful Beekeeper

Stressing the importance of managing varroa, managing queen events, and feeding.
The main presentation starts at 7 pm, but feel free to sign in starting at 6:30 pm for a beginners Q&A session. See our Facebook page or join via the Zoom link above.

​NOTE: Please post questions/comments in the Zoom chat. Facebook is not monitored during our educational meetings.
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Speaker: ​Mr. Lewis Cauble has kept bees since 2007 and worked as an Apiary Inspector with the NC Dept of Agriculture since July of 2015. He lives in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, where he manages between 25 and 35 colonies for fun. He covers 21 counties in Western NC, inspecting colonies for disease and working with the many county beekeeping associations to help beekeepers understand best management practices.  His passion is varroa monitoring and management. 

​Please join us - our monthly meetings are always free and open to the public!​

April's Monthly Meeting: Increasing Honey Yield

3/10/2022

 
Date: Tuesday, April 12  |  Time: 7 pm  |  Location: Online on Zoom

Topic: Increasing Honey Yield

What is necessary to have the highest average production from your colonies and the inputs/management to help achieve this.
The main presentation starts at 7 pm, but feel free to sign in starting at 6:30 pm for a beginners Q&A session. See our Facebook page or join via the Zoom link above.

​NOTE: Please post questions/comments in the Zoom chat. Facebook is not monitored during our educational meetings.
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Speaker: Kent Williams.  
Mr. Kent Williams has been keeping bees for more than 30 years.  His farm has between 800-1200 hives at the height of the season; produces nucs for sale as well as renting colonies for pollination of almonds (California) and melons (Kentucky); produces honey in south MS and West KY and wholesale bottled, bucketed and drum honey in West KY; and produces queens for their use, selling the overflow.
From Kent: We have a beekeepers school on our farm each year, three days, all hands-on in live colonies. Topics range from very basic to advanced. The school is free with a very good meal served each day. Everyone is welcome, no registration, just show up. We also have groups come to the farm throughout the summer to practice specific management, just call to make sure we're home. 

​Please join us - our monthly meetings are always free and open to the public!​

Know Your Native MI Bees!

2/23/2022

 
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Did you know that there are over 450 species of native bees in MI!

The kicker is that honey bees are NOT one of them! It's important for beekeepers to remember our native pollinators.

Who are our native MI bees? Here's a short list, but I'd also recommend this YouTube video by MSU professor of entomology Rufus Isaacs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2N5DoyRoLI

All Seasons Bees:
Bumble Bees
Sweat Bees
Carpenter Bees

Spring Bees:
Mason Bees
Miner Bees
Cellophane Bees
Cuckoo Bees

Summer Bees:
*Squash Bees* (my favorite!: https://www.facebook.com/DyceLab/videos/359136995931540)
Leafcutter Bees
Long-horned Bees

Top 10 Things You Can Do To Help Native Pollinators:
1. Provide Habitat: Don't have a turf grass lawn. Put up a native pollinator house.
2. Don't Use Pesticides: Or, if you HAVE to use them, find the least harmful time, location, season, etc. to use them.
3. Plant Pollinator Friendly Plants: And not 1 or 2. Pollinators are much more likely to frequent clusters or bunches of flowering plants.
4. Plant Trees: Trees are the meadows of the sky! Maples and Willows are especially important as early pollen sources while fruit trees (NOT PEARS!!!) provide nectar.
5. Become a Wildlife Gardener and/or Plant Native Plants
6. Adopt a Monarch and Plant Milkweed: Butterflies are important pollinators too!
7. Protect Grasslands and Native Habitat: Through community endeavors and by talking with your local government officials or voting for habitat conservation.
8. Join Conservation Organizations: And donate generously!
9. Post a Yard Sign: To advertise the importance of your pollinator garden.
10. Spread the Word About Native Pollinators on Social Media: Or at your local garden or plant club or on your blog.


March's Monthly Meeting: Managing Your Apiary for Overwintering Success

2/16/2022

 
Date: Tuesday, March 8  |  Time: 7 pm  |  Location: Online on Zoom

Topic: ​Managing Your Apiary for Overwintering Success

The main presentation starts at 7 pm, but feel free to sign in starting at 6:30 pm for a beginners Q&A session. See our Facebook page or join via the Zoom link above.

​NOTE: Please post questions/comments in the Zoom chat. Facebook is not monitored during our educational meetings.
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Speaker: ​Dr. Christina M. Wahl, Associate Professor (retired) Wells College, and Courtesy Assistant Professor (retired), Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cornell University.

A fourth-generation beekeeper from upstate New York who grew up working in her family’s commercial beekeeping business, the Thousand Islands Apiaries, Professor Wahl is a physiologist and developmental biologist with technical expertise in microscopic surgery, microscopic anatomy, and histology.  She has 30 years of research experience, much of it supported by the National Institutes of Health.  She has taught at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, and at Wells College, in Aurora, NY. 

Dr. Wahl has been a volunteer instructor for the NY Bee Wellness program, and has both taught and mentored beginning beekeepers in the Finger Lakes region.  She has designed and co-taught workshops on queen rearing.  She developed the educational exhibit on honeybees and pollinators at the New York State Fair. She is the editor of the book “Morphometrics” published by InTech.  She has authored several book chapters and many original peer-reviewed research papers and has been a member of several professional science organizations.  Professor Wahl also collaborated with Senior Extension Associate Emma K. Walters (Mullen) at Cornell University on a study entitled “Number and distribution of multiple foundress mites Varroa destructor in northern New York drone brood combs during spring and fall.”   She is actively engaged in efforts to better understand and prevent health problems of the honeybee. 

​Please join us - our monthly meetings are always free and open to the public!​

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Ann Arbor Backyard Beekeepers Club (A2B2) is dedicated to beekeeping education, mentoring, networking, and advocacy within the Ann Arbor area. We provide an informational and social venue for beekeepers of all levels to cooperate and share experiences. We are a non-profit organization that is open to all individuals interested in honeybees and beekeeping.  Donations qualify for federal tax deductions.
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