bee_pipes
12-03-2007, 10:54 PM
Lake Barkley Beekeepers Association
Monthly Newsletter, December 2007
Officers and Beekeeping Officials
Phil Craft, Ky State Apiarist 502 573 0282
Tom Webster, Ag Extension Specialist 502 597 6351
LBBA Pres. Kent Williams 270 382 2348
Vice Pres. Richard Broyles 270 554 0068
Secretary Myrna Burchett
Treasurer Gerald Burchett 270 928 4003
Hello again, and welcome to the December edition of the LBBA monthly newsletter. I hope each of you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday. We have had a month of diverse weather since we last met, with rain of all descriptions, some sunny, almost spring-like days, with a few frosty days thrown in as well…but this is Kentucky. On the nice days the bees at our place were bringing in pollen from somewhere – probably goldenrod or aster that escaped the frost, judging by the color of the pollen. This is the beginning of the nervous season for beekeepers. From the onset of winter - signified by the first freezing temperatures and heavy frosts - until spring bloom, our concern is for the food stores and general health of our bees. I find myself, almost obsessively, tipping hives to estimate the weight in order to make a judgement on the amount of food available for the bees in the hive. On warm days when the bees are flying I may put out a bucket of undiluted HFCS for the bees to work. High fructose corn syrup is a better choice for a liquid food source in winter because it is in a chemical configuration (fructose instead of sucrose or dextrose being the dominant simple sugar in its makeup) that the digestive system of the honeybee can more readily access. When there is a stronger population of bees in the hive, and the inclination of the bees is to store, rather than consume, the food that is being brought in by foragers, the better type sugar to feed is sucrose – pure cane sugar. This is because the bees, in the process of storing the "nectar" will dehydrate the syrup by stretching - thus exposing a greater surface area to air - and adding enzymes from their mandibular and labial glands as they are working the liquid. These enzymes cause the simple sugars - primarily sucrose, dextrose, and sometimes maltose - to invert, becoming primarily fructose and glucose. Many times fructose and glucose are present in the raw nectar from flowers, but not often as the primary simple sugar. Similarly, in the inverted state after the "nectar" has become "honey" there will be a percentage of the sugars sucrose and dextrose, though not in the majority when taken as a whole. This is why sucrose is a better raw form of sugar to feed the bees. The enzymes added in the inversion process cause the final product to be better for meeting the needs of the honeybee. The catch here is that there must be enough bees in the hive to properly cure the syrup; and the time of year must be right to cause the bees to be in "storage mode". Even when feeding as an emergency using a candy board, the sugar involved is sucrose…but in this case it is necessary to use this formulation because the weather is not consistent enough to feed liquid. To put this feeding discussion in terms we may be more familiar with, if we are feeding hay to cattle during winter and we run out of clover and timothy hay and switch to some bales that came from a field of sagebrush and briars, the cattle will probably still survive, they just won’t be as healthy going into spring calving season. It is much the same with bees. We would not think twice about feeding any other type of livestock during times when there is no natural forage…so why not bees. Granted, the time for getting hives prepared for winter is August and September; but, if that effort failed or was overlooked, the situation is what it is – to keep the bees alive they must be fed. Candy boards are the obvious solution, but here in our area we almost always have periods of flying weather mixed with winter weather all during the winter season. These are times that you might set out some open feed stations or feed liquid inside the hives. Don’t forget floats or something like pine straw in open feeders and division board feeders. After saying all this, I know I am preaching to the choir here. I am confident all of you heeded the message in late summer and fall to prepare for winter…but just in case…I felt there may be someone like me that had a few hives slip through the cracks (happens every year) and enter the winter season short on food stores.
The KSBA newsletter, The Bee-Line, will no longer be available in "hard copy" after the November/December issue. You may still obtain a printed copy of the newsletter by contacting either your local Extension Office, by having the newsletter printed out at your local library, or by contacting me. Printed copies will be available at each of our local meetings. The Bee-Line will be available to all on the KSBA website, if you are a computer owner/user, beginning in January, hopefully.
Here is wishing for each of you a joyous Christmas season – Hanukah if you are of the Jewish faith. I hope we all will hold the true meaning of this special time of year in our hearts. This is the best way I know to exhibit the "Christmas Spirit".
Dates to Remember
December 8 LBBA monthly meeting and Christmas Dinner. Held at the Graves County Extension Office located on Hwy 45 across from the Car Quest parts store In Mayfield, KY. Meeting begins at 10:00 a.m., with dinner at noon. Every-one is welcome, families included (as always) There will be door prizes.
Five Chores for the Beeyard
Begin preparing for 2008. It is not too early to make pollen patties and put them in the freezer. I put pollen (or pollen substitute) patties on hives during the first period of "flying weather" in January. You might want to wait until later. The idea is to stimulate the queen into egg production a little earlier than she would be stimulated naturally by pollen and nectar producing plants. More on this subject at the meeting.
Equipment repair / maintenance / assembly. I think this is self-explanatory.
Package gift boxes or sets for gift-giving. I am assuming that most of you – like Valerie and me – give honey or honey based gifts to friends and family each year. I will include in the recipe section some of our "super double naught secret" recipes for making sauces. Our practice each year is to give small containers of honey mustard, barbecue sauce, honey butter, and extracted honey in gift packs to family and friends. They all seem to enjoy the gifts…more than a pair of socks or a tie, anyway…and it simplifies our life a little by not needing to spend hours at the mall shopping for the perfect gift before surrendering to the inevitable and buying a Hickory Farms cheese log. (even though they are tasty)
Educate yourself…more. Read everything you can get your hands on dealing with the matters that concern you. Catch up with the latest on CCD. (Now, it seems, the researchers are saying that a variant of the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus has been in North America for several years at least – makes me wonder what else has been here that we do not know about) More will be said about this subject at our meeting Saturday. Make plans to attend one or more of the Bee-Schools this winter / spring. Phil Craft has an excellent school each year in the Frankfort/Lexington area. It is well worth the drive if you can attend. There is also a good school held in Bowling Green each year, sponsored by the Allen County Beekeepers. We will hold our annual school at our farm during the first week of April this year. It will be the same as always; Wednesday through Saturday of hands-on teaching, fellowship, and lots of good food.
Most importantly, take time to enjoy family and friends during this blessed season. We are only on this earth for a time; it nearly always seems too short a time. It is our obligation to comfort those whom we count as friends that have lost loved ones during the past year…or in the past, period. The feeling of loss is always there, just buried a little deeper by time. Also, remember those loyal Americans, and their families, that are serving our Country during the Holiday. It is the sacrifice of these people, and others before them – the sacrifice of a portion of their life, and sometimes their very life – that gives us the freedom to wish a Merry Christmas, happy Hanukah, or whatever religious observance you and yours celebrate, to each and all. Let’s not take these fine people for granted.
Recipes for the Month
Honey Mustard
1 cup mayonnaise, ¼ cup honey, ¼ cup mustard
mix well and blend until smooth.
Variations include adding crushed red pepper to taste, or horseradish to taste, for a spicy version of this dressing/dipping sauce. If you prefer a tangier product, increase the percentage of mustard.
Honey Barbecue Sauce
2/3 cup ketchup, 2/3 cup honey, 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce, 2 TB garlic powder, 2 TB chili powder, black pepper to taste (I use 2 TB)
mix ingredients and blend until smooth
Honey Butter
To make true honey butter you must begin with creamed honey. Mix equal amounts – by weight – of creamed honey and butter (or margarine). Each must be softened to allow mixing. Blend until smooth, then pour into the intended containers and refrigerate. The product will solidify within a day.
Monthly Newsletter, December 2007
Officers and Beekeeping Officials
Phil Craft, Ky State Apiarist 502 573 0282
Tom Webster, Ag Extension Specialist 502 597 6351
LBBA Pres. Kent Williams 270 382 2348
Vice Pres. Richard Broyles 270 554 0068
Secretary Myrna Burchett
Treasurer Gerald Burchett 270 928 4003
Hello again, and welcome to the December edition of the LBBA monthly newsletter. I hope each of you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday. We have had a month of diverse weather since we last met, with rain of all descriptions, some sunny, almost spring-like days, with a few frosty days thrown in as well…but this is Kentucky. On the nice days the bees at our place were bringing in pollen from somewhere – probably goldenrod or aster that escaped the frost, judging by the color of the pollen. This is the beginning of the nervous season for beekeepers. From the onset of winter - signified by the first freezing temperatures and heavy frosts - until spring bloom, our concern is for the food stores and general health of our bees. I find myself, almost obsessively, tipping hives to estimate the weight in order to make a judgement on the amount of food available for the bees in the hive. On warm days when the bees are flying I may put out a bucket of undiluted HFCS for the bees to work. High fructose corn syrup is a better choice for a liquid food source in winter because it is in a chemical configuration (fructose instead of sucrose or dextrose being the dominant simple sugar in its makeup) that the digestive system of the honeybee can more readily access. When there is a stronger population of bees in the hive, and the inclination of the bees is to store, rather than consume, the food that is being brought in by foragers, the better type sugar to feed is sucrose – pure cane sugar. This is because the bees, in the process of storing the "nectar" will dehydrate the syrup by stretching - thus exposing a greater surface area to air - and adding enzymes from their mandibular and labial glands as they are working the liquid. These enzymes cause the simple sugars - primarily sucrose, dextrose, and sometimes maltose - to invert, becoming primarily fructose and glucose. Many times fructose and glucose are present in the raw nectar from flowers, but not often as the primary simple sugar. Similarly, in the inverted state after the "nectar" has become "honey" there will be a percentage of the sugars sucrose and dextrose, though not in the majority when taken as a whole. This is why sucrose is a better raw form of sugar to feed the bees. The enzymes added in the inversion process cause the final product to be better for meeting the needs of the honeybee. The catch here is that there must be enough bees in the hive to properly cure the syrup; and the time of year must be right to cause the bees to be in "storage mode". Even when feeding as an emergency using a candy board, the sugar involved is sucrose…but in this case it is necessary to use this formulation because the weather is not consistent enough to feed liquid. To put this feeding discussion in terms we may be more familiar with, if we are feeding hay to cattle during winter and we run out of clover and timothy hay and switch to some bales that came from a field of sagebrush and briars, the cattle will probably still survive, they just won’t be as healthy going into spring calving season. It is much the same with bees. We would not think twice about feeding any other type of livestock during times when there is no natural forage…so why not bees. Granted, the time for getting hives prepared for winter is August and September; but, if that effort failed or was overlooked, the situation is what it is – to keep the bees alive they must be fed. Candy boards are the obvious solution, but here in our area we almost always have periods of flying weather mixed with winter weather all during the winter season. These are times that you might set out some open feed stations or feed liquid inside the hives. Don’t forget floats or something like pine straw in open feeders and division board feeders. After saying all this, I know I am preaching to the choir here. I am confident all of you heeded the message in late summer and fall to prepare for winter…but just in case…I felt there may be someone like me that had a few hives slip through the cracks (happens every year) and enter the winter season short on food stores.
The KSBA newsletter, The Bee-Line, will no longer be available in "hard copy" after the November/December issue. You may still obtain a printed copy of the newsletter by contacting either your local Extension Office, by having the newsletter printed out at your local library, or by contacting me. Printed copies will be available at each of our local meetings. The Bee-Line will be available to all on the KSBA website, if you are a computer owner/user, beginning in January, hopefully.
Here is wishing for each of you a joyous Christmas season – Hanukah if you are of the Jewish faith. I hope we all will hold the true meaning of this special time of year in our hearts. This is the best way I know to exhibit the "Christmas Spirit".
Dates to Remember
December 8 LBBA monthly meeting and Christmas Dinner. Held at the Graves County Extension Office located on Hwy 45 across from the Car Quest parts store In Mayfield, KY. Meeting begins at 10:00 a.m., with dinner at noon. Every-one is welcome, families included (as always) There will be door prizes.
Five Chores for the Beeyard
Begin preparing for 2008. It is not too early to make pollen patties and put them in the freezer. I put pollen (or pollen substitute) patties on hives during the first period of "flying weather" in January. You might want to wait until later. The idea is to stimulate the queen into egg production a little earlier than she would be stimulated naturally by pollen and nectar producing plants. More on this subject at the meeting.
Equipment repair / maintenance / assembly. I think this is self-explanatory.
Package gift boxes or sets for gift-giving. I am assuming that most of you – like Valerie and me – give honey or honey based gifts to friends and family each year. I will include in the recipe section some of our "super double naught secret" recipes for making sauces. Our practice each year is to give small containers of honey mustard, barbecue sauce, honey butter, and extracted honey in gift packs to family and friends. They all seem to enjoy the gifts…more than a pair of socks or a tie, anyway…and it simplifies our life a little by not needing to spend hours at the mall shopping for the perfect gift before surrendering to the inevitable and buying a Hickory Farms cheese log. (even though they are tasty)
Educate yourself…more. Read everything you can get your hands on dealing with the matters that concern you. Catch up with the latest on CCD. (Now, it seems, the researchers are saying that a variant of the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus has been in North America for several years at least – makes me wonder what else has been here that we do not know about) More will be said about this subject at our meeting Saturday. Make plans to attend one or more of the Bee-Schools this winter / spring. Phil Craft has an excellent school each year in the Frankfort/Lexington area. It is well worth the drive if you can attend. There is also a good school held in Bowling Green each year, sponsored by the Allen County Beekeepers. We will hold our annual school at our farm during the first week of April this year. It will be the same as always; Wednesday through Saturday of hands-on teaching, fellowship, and lots of good food.
Most importantly, take time to enjoy family and friends during this blessed season. We are only on this earth for a time; it nearly always seems too short a time. It is our obligation to comfort those whom we count as friends that have lost loved ones during the past year…or in the past, period. The feeling of loss is always there, just buried a little deeper by time. Also, remember those loyal Americans, and their families, that are serving our Country during the Holiday. It is the sacrifice of these people, and others before them – the sacrifice of a portion of their life, and sometimes their very life – that gives us the freedom to wish a Merry Christmas, happy Hanukah, or whatever religious observance you and yours celebrate, to each and all. Let’s not take these fine people for granted.
Recipes for the Month
Honey Mustard
1 cup mayonnaise, ¼ cup honey, ¼ cup mustard
mix well and blend until smooth.
Variations include adding crushed red pepper to taste, or horseradish to taste, for a spicy version of this dressing/dipping sauce. If you prefer a tangier product, increase the percentage of mustard.
Honey Barbecue Sauce
2/3 cup ketchup, 2/3 cup honey, 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce, 2 TB garlic powder, 2 TB chili powder, black pepper to taste (I use 2 TB)
mix ingredients and blend until smooth
Honey Butter
To make true honey butter you must begin with creamed honey. Mix equal amounts – by weight – of creamed honey and butter (or margarine). Each must be softened to allow mixing. Blend until smooth, then pour into the intended containers and refrigerate. The product will solidify within a day.