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AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

Aseara a fost prima intalnire pe 2009.
Au fost prezenti aprox. 30 de persoane.
Majoritatea suntem amatori cu 20 de stupi sau mai putin.
Femeile au adus prajituri si s-au discutat despre mai multe subiecte.
As putea sa postez de fapt discutiile.
Cineva a oferit de vanzare stupi 1/1 + 3/4 dupa sezonul de polenizare cu $125 si s-au facut rezervatie pt 28.

Dear BASC members,
The meeting is tonight at 7PM and the minutes are attached. Future dates are Feb 26, March 26, April 23, May 28, June 25, July 23, Aug 27, Sept 24, and Oct 22
Thanks, see you there,
Linda

BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (BASC)

Mark Allen, President (562) 494-6844 or (562) 505-2768

Mark Hoppe, Vice President (562) 841-9754

Linda Sun, Secretary (951) 676-6917

Donald Mitchell, Treasurer (310) 327-5345

e-mail: or

Web site:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL MEETING OCTOBER 23, 2008

MEETINGS: 7PM on the Fourth Thursday, except Thanksgiving and

   Christmas, or course, at the City of La Mirada Community

   Resource Center located at 13710 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada

   CA 90638

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order by our President, Mark Allen at 7:32 PM with 34

people present. A round table discussion began.

There is an auction of bees on "Bee Bay".

Jim Mieras told us we can spray Bee-Go onto a fume board, which is placed

underneath an aluminum top. If the hive is in the sun the bees will depart

quickly, within 5 to 10 minutes maximum.

Put an empty box in another place with a lid.

Mark Hoppe noted that Bee-Go is used to bleach maraschino cherries before

coloring them; use very little Bee-Go. Fischer's Bee Quick is not as smelly and

is also non-toxic.

Just put it on the super, not on top of the brood box.

A bee escape board goes UNDER the super and don't leave it on longer than 2

days in case the board exit gets clogged with bees.

Use a clean ice chest with a lid for keeping the honey frames separated.

Currently, mobile beekeepers are getting $200.00 per box for pollination service.

Jim Mieras: Using a hot knife, you have more control from the waist down, so

keep the frame of honey about waist level.

I went to Stater Brothers supermarket and asked for icing buckets and received

many, including the lids, for free. A 2-inch drain hole can be drilled at the base

of the cylinder and a "honey gate" valve put on it which governs the honey flow.

Use a nylon paint strainer hanging from a bungee cord and attach if over a food-

grade bucket; let the honey drip out and the wax will remain in the paint strainer.

Vons supermarket has a mold which holds 12 cup cakes and these molds are

used to receive the cup cakes; the molds are thrown away daily. Get some of

these and use them to make round wax cakes. (The Ross Rounds, used for

round section comb honey, can only be used if there is a good honey flow.)

Don Mitchell gave the Treasurer's Report: As of 10-23-08 there was

$ 2,920.11 in the checking account, and

$10,795.49 in the Certificate of Deposit, for a total of

$13,715.60. Linda Sun moved to accept the Treasurer's Report as presented

and the motion was seconded by both Mark Hoppe and Robin Mitchell. The

motion carried unanimously.

The Secretary had sent copies of the minutes by e-mail to all who had provided

their addresses and copies were given to those present who had no e-mail.

Mark Allen told us that the California State Beekeepers' Association will have its

next meeting (convention) November 11th through the 14th in Lake Tahoe at

Harrah's. Lodging at Harvey's is $59.00 and it is best to drive there. Registration

is $80.00 in advance, but is $120.00 if paid at the hotel. The luncheon is $50.00

and the banquet is $60.00. There will be great talks given and lots of bee

people from UC Davis. The Board of Directors' meeting is at 3 PM on Nov. 10th

and the opening ceremony is at 8:30 AM on Tuesday, November 11th. Any

donations always go to bee research.

Robin Mitchell moved that we give Mark Allen $500.00 to cover his expenses

at Lake Tahoe for the convention. The motion was seconded by Jerry

Mc Carter and carried unanimously.

Next year's bee convention will be in San Diego at the Hilton in Mission Bay

in November. The website is:

Guy Levine told us that the TV show, Paul James, The Gardening Guy said

that UC San Diego has a bee place.

Bees do not see in the dark.

UC Riverside has an observation hive set-up where you can put a protractor

over the glass and figure out the location where the bees will go. Mark Allen

thought maybe we could go there on a field trip with Kirk Visscher of the UCR

entomology department.

A member asked: My beehives now get full sun; I want to put them in the

shade; will the bees produce there? Answers: not at much. They get more

cranky in the shade. The wood rots.

Dick Dyer says to face the hives toward the East to make more money.

Mark Allen informed us that it is possible to apply for a permit through the

California Department of Forestry for a plot of public land for bees and bee

yards. If you get turned down be persistent and ask for written reasons for

the refusal and you may eventually get the permit. Liability insurance is

required and costs about $500.00.

Question: If I have a party, how do I keep my bees from bothering my guests?

Mark Allen: I built an 8-foot tall false shed which is open at the top. The bees

fly straight up before going outward to forage.

Jim Mieras: put a divider in a few days ahead of time so that the bees can

adapt, otherwise they will continue in their normal paths and will be banging

into the top of the divider.

If it will only be one day (for the party), put a screen over the exits for extra air

and put in a feeder of sugar water.

Rick Royce at Whittier Narrows is working on establishing a public ground

for bees. You could put bees there whenever you are having a party or

having a problem.

Mark Allen: when adding a new queen, put her as close to the brood as

possible for the best acceptance.

Question on moving hives after dark (9 PM): If I seal them off and move them

will there be a problem the next morning when the bees go out to forage?

Clint Venable: the bees will not take notice of the new location if it is fairly

close to the old place and you will lose them.

Dick Dyer: the bees cannot un-learn their bee-line home. If they go to the

same forage, they revert to the old location of the hive and cannot find it in

the new location. A 3-week adjustment period is needed for foragers. You

can only move the hive 2 or 3 feet away, in increments. The bees will always

take their old bee-line home until they die. They will smell their way in those

last few feet, so you cannot move the hive too far. If the beehives are in a

row and you must move one, those returning bees will be adopted by a

close neighboring hive. My favorite way to handle this is to remove the

returning bees and put them on top of another hive in the dark and they will

be accepted, but if not, smoke everybody and these bees will be accepted.

The meeting adjourned at 9:17 PM. Next meeting is January 22, 2009.

Respectfully submitted, Linda Sun, Secretary

Bees develop antibodies to viruses and a detector finds them by their size.

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

In seara asta avem sedinta pe febroarie.
Ce sa discutat in Ianuarie.

GENERAL MEETING JANUARY 22, 2009

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM by our Vice President, Mark Hoppe,
as Mark Allen was attending a meeting in Monterrey. Due are now due. Our
post office box was in Hacienda Heights, but that is gone now. We have a new
one in La Mirada now and it is PO Box 992 La Mirada, CA 90637-0992. A new
brochure should be printed for our organization and post card reminders too.
The Community Resource Center is reserving room only for 3 months now. Our
next meeting in February will be in the building behind this, so we will meet at
the Activity Center in February; this may be one time only. The following two
meetings (March 26th and April 23rd) will again be here at the Community
Resource Center.

Secretary's Report: the Secretary had e-mailed the minutes by e-mail to all
members who could receive them on-line and had provided extra copies to the
members here who were not yet on our list.

One of the members asked if the minutes could be posted on the web site.
Mark Hoppe will ask Mark Allen if that can be done.
A motion was made by Russ Levine to accept the minutes as presented. The
motion was seconded by Ron Hoyle and carried unanimously.

Round table discussions and introductions began. We had our Christmas
dinner last month and it was enjoyed by all. Ron Hoylel mentioned that it was at the North Woods Inn and the meal was very enjoyable. Kirk Visscher from UC Riverside spoke to us and showed slides. (Kirk told the Secretary that one of his former students was giving the course at Cal-Poly Pomona and Kirk will give the beekeeping course at UC Riverside in 2010.) Andrei took pictures and will mail these and maybe they could be put onto our web site.

Ron Hoyle discussed the upcoming Beekeeping 101 and will put it on Power
Point. Ron and Jerry Mc Carter teach this once a year at Jerry's house in
Upland. There will be paraphernalia, smokers, tools, frames and much inform-
ation for new beekeepers including building bee boxes, extracting honey, and
using the hot knife. They will open their hives and let us handle the frames and bees, so that we will not be intimidated. This will probably be the end of April this year. The address is 2535 Vista Drive in Upland (zip code 91784), but maps will be available beforehand. The phone number at Jerry's is (909) 234-6339.

Maybe Huell Howser could do a show on public television?
It is not the 60,000 bees that are a problem, it's the 60,000 stingers. We need to be sure that all parts of the bee suit are zipped up and closed (except for those beekeepers who go in bare handed and uncovered). Mark Hoppe does not wear a bee suit and usually doesn't mind being stung. April 23rd is the meeting date, so the following Saturday should be the date: April 25th.

NEW BUSINESS

Russ Levine and Dave Mendes, president of American Beekeeping Federation,
contacted the bee pollinators regardidng selling some of their hives and bees.
Russ will sell a pallet of bees at a time, but you must buy a bottom board as
these hives do not have bottom boards. These bees will be coming out after
pollinating the almonds up north and will go for $125.00 and will be 1 and a half
boxes high and will include the frames and the bees, 2008 queens and their
brood. This will be between March 28th and April 23rd, but call Russ within the
next weeks at (909) 560-1063 or e-mail to
The almond bloom is approximately 6 weeks and there is not much nectar, but
the bees do get the pollen. They can almost starve, though, so provide sugar
water.

Clint Venable said to make sure there is a queen. Bees can be brought to
Upland. Levine is in LaVerne and will bring the bees at night.
Mark Hoppe said that Varroa mites changed things and there are not enough
bees available. The almond growers are more picky now and want heavy
hives, so the ones coming back should be pretty good.

Larry Wehage of Bellflfower asked is anyone had lost hives in the fires. A
discussion followed. One person mentioned a swarm about 10 feet off the
ground and his neighbor asked if he wanted the swarm, but it was gone in just
a few hours.

Clint Venable told us that bees don't always run from smoke. He had a fire
scorch the bottoms of his hives, but the bees stayed in the hives and endured.
Dick Dyer had some fires and once the front of a hive was charred black.
Dead bees blocked the entrance, but when he scooped those out all the other
bees had been saved by those who died at the entrance.

Mark Hoppe told us that in Fallbrook they had a fire that originated in Rainbow,
which is east of the 15 freeway. The fire jumped the freeway and there were
200 hives on the west side. The heat dried the leaves in the avocado groves,
but not the trees. The leaves were entirely gone, but the hives survived.

Dick Dyer: orange and avocado groves are wet, but a pine box burns well and
so does sugar and wax.

Linda Sun: the avocado groves have often saved the areas behind them by
acting as a damp firebreak.

Mark Hoppe: Laurel Sumac burns well and has heavy sap; the limbs explode
in a fire, but it is a good honey plant and that honey tastes like butterscotch.

Jerry Mc Carter: buckwheat will not come back for 3 or 4 years after a fire.

Is oleander honey a problem, due to the plant's toxicity? It could be, but the
bees seem to eliminate any toxins.

Russ Levine enjoys woodworking and showed us a swarm catcher made with
a vacuum with windows covered with screening on each side of a box and
this box fits nicely inside of another box. You put the hose on the outside and
it forms a vacuum. Plexiglass is on both sides of the outer box and he puts
foam on the back wall to cushion the bees when they are sucked in. It is
important to adjust the suction, so that it is not too strong. A hole in the top
surface has a flap which gradually closes by hand. He also makes a box
which keeps the workers in, but excludes the bigger drones and the queen.

The trap has a sliding bottom so that bees can fall into the box. This fits over
the hive box. The green box on the bottom is a super with 2 hinged doors.
The green box is a filter for when you want to get the queen out of the hive.
He takes the supers off and the brood frames out and sets these aside. He
puts the supers back on so that the bees can return from foraging. He takes
the brood frames out and brushes every bee off into the filter and then has
empty frames. He brushes and shakes the last frame and all of the bees
(probably including the queen) are back together except for the brood. The
queen is really good at hiding. Then he closes it up and puts a brick on top
and uses a very little bit of smoke. The drones and the queen are stuck
inside and he puts cold water on them and they just roll around. The queen
who was raising mean bees is destroyed. In a week a new peanut appears
in the hive for a new queen. The bees have a new attitude with a new queen.

A new queen will not use the drones anyway so they are gotten rid of also.
The new queen will use drones from down the street on her maiden flight.

Dick Dyer said that this would be far more convenient to clean than a card-
board box. Dick has just "induced" swarming in one of his hives.

Mark Hoppe: you can buy queens in the warmer months. The queen lives
3 to 5 years and the workers know when they need to swarm. They will not
kill the queen; that is the beekeeper's job.

There will be several queen cells on the frames. Take one of those frames
and put in into another hive after killing the queen.

When there is a new queen, how often does she not return from her mating
flight? Maybe one out of 10 queens do not return. One hive will gladly adopt
the brood from another hive.

Ron Hoyle: according to talk at the convention, most beekeepers replace the
queen every year.

Dick Dyer: It is tradition to replace her every 2 years, if you can remember,but
you don't know every one of your hives. All swarms have old queens.

Mark Hoppe: I suspect that mean bees survive better; it just makes sense. I
had bees that knew that sweat inside the suit made it much easier to sting me
right through the suit.

Dick Dyer: My yard has about 10 hives; the best producers are the ones I cut
in half last summer. They are also the nicest and they produce the best. I
still favor a young queen.

Is it feasible to keep bees in a standard sized lot? Yes, but don't tell your
neighbors. It is good to camouflage the bees. The City of Long Beach does
not allow the keeping of bees, but the president's hive concealer has no roof
on it. You need a place to run if the inspector comes out; he only gives you
5 days to get rid of your bees; if you still have them after 5 days he will take
your wallet. If you have no place to go you must kill your bees.

Is water needed? Yes, the bees are attracted to water and we usually put
water lilies or water hyacinth into the bucket to keep the bees from drowning.
They are also attracted to chlorine water, so they find swimming pools, but
they often drown there. In some ponds a board or boulder is used to help
the bees climb out.

Dick Dyer: If you are in a city where it is illegal to have bees, you can use a
vacant second story room and people usually don't know the bees live there.
Bee Culture's 2009 Bee Calendar has fabulous photos (it was passed around).

You should register with the county if you have 10 hives or more. Those who
spray chemicals are supposed to notify the county and the county is then
supposed to notify the registered beekeepers (in advance), but it seldom
happens. We just installed "security bees" for a car sales lot.

Thinking of the current peanut butter scare, if I sell honey can anyone come
back at me? Honey is special and is very acidic, which keeps bacteria and
fungi from growing on it. It also contains hydrogen peroxide and the sugar
attracts water which dries out microbes.

Dick Dyer: If you can sell tomatoes across the fence, you can sell honey,
but it should not be fed to infants under one year old.

How many people here provide water sources for their bees? About half of
us raised their hands (the other half probably lives in cities where water is
abundant from sprinklers, hoses, etc.)

Beecatchers.com go see photos of people catching swarms.
ted.com see (hear) a talk on Colony Collapse Disorder.
Andrei Nastase: Learn the difference between a swarm and a colony. A
swarm does not have brood and honey to protect, so they don't sting unless
greatly provoked.

Can you pull frames out one-at-a-time to remove honey, or should you wait
'til the frames are all full? You can do it either way, but drip extraction does
not work well. You would have to put a frame into the oven at 170 degrees F
for several days to get they honey out and by then it would be cooked.
Honey would crystallize if left for months, although cold temporarily retards
crystallization.

Dick Dyer: The best place to store honey is in the beehive. Bees must make
wax and they need 3 pounds of honey to get 1 pound of wax. Now we take
the frame out when it has been capped as the bees know when to cap it. It
is best if we give them their wax frames back after we centrifuge the honey
out. Then they don't have to make new wax and use up their time.

Clint Venable: take the hot knife and cut out a 2 inch by 2 inch piece and
replace the frame in the hive. The bees will fix it. Honeycomb is best that way.

Dick Dyer: The bees are constantly repairing their combs to get rid of wax
moth worms. It so pretty to see the different colors of pollen in the wax.

At 8:55 PM Willie Solomon moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion was
seconded by Ron Hoyle and carried unanimously.

The next meeting will be on February 26, 2009 at the Activity Center.

Respectfully submitted, Linda Sun, Secretary

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

Feb. 23

CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 7:15 PM by our President, Mark Allen
with 49 people present. Jim Mieras brought a swarm of bees and
suggested that it be raffled off. Jim told us that these bees are smart; he
got them at a school. The January minutes were ordered corrected at
the first sentence under NEW BUSINESS: Dave Mendes is the pollinator
as well as the president of the ABF.

Ron Hoyle had a Power Point presentation and discussed the Beekeep-
ing 101 held in the spring at Jerry Mc Carter's house in Upland. The
photos showed the 4-frame extractor which is available free to any
member for extracting honey by hand using a crank. Jerry was shown
explaining the uses of tools and equipment. Boxes can be purchased
already assembled or they can be put together after buying the parts
separately and Jerry will show us how. Jim Mieras was shown explain-
ing the headgear, suits, smokers and suggested that beginners buy their
hive boxes already assembled. Ron was explaining theuse of the
scraper and hot knife in the photos. Jerry and Ron also have a large
extractor which processes many frames. The County of San Bernardino
watches them and requires that water be provided for the bees and that
hives be labeled. A photo of water hyacinths floating in water was
shown as a place for the bees to land without drowning.

Question: When you harvest honey, is it bad to let it set in the comb?
You should not let it sit as it will really crystallize, then you can't get it out.
Question: Do you have to change the drinking water for the bees?
No, you just put mosquito fish into the water which are provided for free
by the Vector Control departments in Ontario, and Riverside and
Orange Counties; they eat mosquito larvae and keep the water clean.

Photos were shown of beginning beekeepers examining frames of
bees; this keeps us from being intimidated. Ron told us that a friend of
his daughter had bees and when they saw him he was wearing rubber
boots and gloves and was all taped up. I said, "Lets open the hives up,
take off the supers and look at the brood." He was surprised because
he had never been in his hives. We worked them and got familiar with
those bees. Pollen and capped brood will be shown to the new
people. We will show you how clamps and hive tool work. The queen
cells are usually on the bottom edge of the frame. We have coffee and
lunch, then go to the bee yard. A bee hat and long-sleeved gloves are
necessary. Beekeeping 101 for 2009 will be on April 25th (two days
after the April meeting) at 10:30 AM at 2535 East Vista Drive in Upland,
which is in San Bernardino County. The zip code is 91784 for those
locating it on Map Quest. It is just north of the Foothill freeway (highway
210), east of the 57 and west of the 15. You can take the 10 freeway
and exit onto Euclid, which is highway 83, and go north. At 24th street,
Euclid Ave divides and becomes Euclid Cres West (left) and Euclid
Cres E (to your right). Stay to your right and follow the half circle of
Euclid Cres E around, but now go left when this street again divides,
and go left onto Prospect. Prospect will intersect with Vista Drive and
you will have arrived. If you have a San Bernardino Thomas Guide,
the location is on page 572 at 1 and a half and halfway between B and
C. The phone number there is (909) 234-6339. The secretary will
mail advance notice by e-mail and Mark Hoppe will send out flyers.
There is no charge, but you must be a member to attend; dues are
only $8.00.

Mark Allen told us that avocados are blooming now. Bees pollinate
these trees, but the avocado embryo dies when the temperature goes
below 55 degrees F. It is not an issue right now, but we can provide
pollen patties for the bees. According to the studies, the bees will not
store this pollen, but will eat it. Don't waste money on sugar solutions
right now. When the ground is wet there is nectar. The poster show-
ing the beekeeping year is wrong for our area. Corn syrup feeding is
still up in the air as to it being good or bad to feed to bees. In summer
the sugar solution is 1 to 1 by weight, but I do it 1 to 1 by volume. We
are supposed to weigh water. (1 pint of milk, water, eggs, solid butter,
granulated sugar and chopped meat all weigh 1 pound each, per the
internet.) We must use hot water, but don't burn the sugar as it
becomes toxic to bees. I use a paint mixer attached to a drill to mis it
all in a 5 gallon bucket. Each feeder inside a hive holds 1 gallon.
Sugar solution is slightly perishable, so don't keep it around. If they
needed it, the bees took it. If they didn't need it the solution ferments
and stinks. A very tiny bit of chlorine in the syrup makes it keep fresh
longer. It is hard to get fungus or mold off plastic. It is virtually imposs-
ible to keep tiny spores out of a mix. Bleach probably works, but the
trick is to not put too much in.
Jerry Mc Carter leaves a full super of honey on top for his bees.
Dick Dyer said that honey is the preferred food for bees. You can put
a frame of undesirable honey into a different hive for the bees to use.
Sterilize equipment with food-based cleaner, which might be found at
Smart and Final.

Fred Hesper noted that the old extractors were galvanized and we left
a coating of honey in there to protect the extractor from rust and wash-
ed it out in the spring.

Mark Allen on preventative treatments: We always have mites of
some kind; for Varroa mites the old treatments no longer work, but
currently we use powdered sugar sprinkled onto the tops of the frames
if we have 10 hives or fewer. A drone came out of his brood cell with
14 mites on him. The female mite is parthenogenic - she lays eggs
without mating. The male that emerges mates with his mother. There
are lots of drones this time of year. They feed off the bee in its brood
cell and we get deformed bees. When the bee comes out she pumps
her wings full of blood to straighten and harden them, but twisted wings
make her useless. Packaged bees usually do not have mites, but we
should always have mites on the brain. The IPM (Integrated Pest
Management) system is the use of screened bottom boards and
powdered sugar. The screens for the bottom are 1/8 inch hardware
cloth and these must be used if sprinkling powdered sugar onto bees.

Dick Dyer: In nature bees live in a tree with no bottom; when mites fall
off of the bees they don't come back.

Mark Allen: there are drone frames with larger sized wax foundations.
Apiguard is made from thymol and it works well. The thyme oil gets
transferred from bee to bee. Don't buy it from Dadant as they want the
buyer to get a permit. Mite-Away II is tricky. Fumagilin-B...

Dick Dyer: Bees drift in if there is a large entrance, but if the entrance
is small, bees are not so close and get fewer mites.

Mark Allen: Mites are not good at moving around; they crawl sideways
on suction feet, but when they fall off the screen keeps them from
returning. Use a sieve of powdered sugar shaken over the frames
and try to get it onto the bees. When the mites hit the sugar they can
not hang on and will fall. Bees love to eat the powdered sugar. Bees
can regulate the heat in a hive to within one-half of a degree within 10
seconds. In Calexico they can keep bees at 120 degrees F in the
summertime.

Members: It is not an actual window screen, but is 1/8 inch hardware
cloth. Bosch sells it and Ace Hardware and Orchard. There is a
hardware supply in Pasadena on Artesia and Pioneer which is a
combination hardware and sheet metal shop.

Mark Allen: Some bees are always cleaner than others and they
don't allow the larvae of moth worms to remain in the bottom debris.

Question: Should the bottom screen be removable to help the bees
with their housekeeping?
Usually you just brush it off. It could be removable if it were not nailed
or screwed on. Another mechanical way to make life easier for the
bees is to use 2 drone frames per hive (these come in green on
purpose) and are made by Pierco; Jim Mieras has them. When the
queen goes over these larger cell foundations she lays drone eggs
and that is where the mites go. You can pull that frame out when it
has been filled up and put in another. Put that first one into the freez-
er for 12 to 48 hours and it kills the drones and their mites. Put it back
into a hive as is and the bees will clean it out. You can figure out that
a drone takes 26 days to hatch, so pull it out at 24 days and freeze
the frame.

If a worker is filled with food she will usually be allowed in even if she
has come to a foreign hive. Nosema ceranae (like Nosema apis) is
a spore-forming micro protozoan which came from the asian honey
bee, Apis cerana. It is a fungal disease which has taken over and
causes damage and is no longer limited to Asia. It causes dysentery
and bees are infected in their gut. The hyphae burrow into their
intestinal walls and they cannot feed babies or produce royal jelly
and the hive begins to crash. Nosema Ceranae came out the same
time as Colony Collapse Disorder. It comes from the drifting of bees
and from spores. Drones drift like crazy and look like drunken heli-
copters. In commercial bee yards they must treat all hives to avoid
the spread and they use Fumagillin. A member of the Los Angeles
County Beekeepers said at a meeting that Fumagillin does not get
into the honey. A mycologist was shocked to hear that we use
Fumagillin which is so toxic and should be a last-ditch effort. Spring
and Fall is the best time to treat as the bees are susceptible to every-
thing.

Question: If asked to do a bee rescue and the homeowner admits
that he/she has used a spray, what should I expect?
The greatest risk is of bees dying, but any spray will not be in the
honey as it would have killed the hive long ago if it had been in the
honey. Contamination from pesticides can be found in the wax in a
great amount for a long time, while not appearing in the honey from
the same hive. I stopped using comb and keep that in a separate
bag and trash it. A piece goes in to help the bees get established,
but I take that out after a week to be safe.

Russ Levine: A 2 box vacuum system has a lot of vibration. If you
put a motor on top it will be more trouble. The basic design of all
bee vacuums should be a large diffusion of pressure. The bees
need a soft base on which to land after being sucked in.

Dick Dyer: the air should be slowed down.
Question: When brood and all is collected from a site, it I don't get
the queen, will they make a new queen?
If it is only a short time, yes. If you get the majority it is possible that
the queen will go in, but don't count on it. Get on the phone to
northern California to get a queen and have her sent by overnight
mail. Bee Happy (530) 795-2124; Buzz's Bees (530) 882-4302;
Bz Bee Pollinators (530) 787-3044; Coma Apiaries (530) 547-5773;
Honey Bee Genetics (707) 449-0440; Noble Apiaries (707)
628-6046; Olivarez Honey Bees (530) 865-0298; Pendell Apiaries
(530) 963-3062; Powell Apiaries (530) 865-3346; Strachan
Apiaries (530) 674-3881 or Breeder Queens in Fallbrook if you
would like to try your hand at this: Glenn Apiaries (760) 728-3731
The queen would not settle down anyway after a vacuum capture,
so wait 5 days to look into the hive.

I had 7 swarms at my house this last week; every day a new one.
Question: Is there a way to keep bees from swarming?
Mark Hoppe: Have a lot of room in the hive with good ventilation
and a queen to lay eggs.
Keep the brood area clear. If a queen runs out of places to lay she
cannot continue and the bees do not feed her. Splitting is best as
you get 2 hives with plenty of space in each.

Question: Do we need one box or 2 boxes?
Some use one box with a queen excluder, but that gives a faster
chance to swarm. Two boxes gives lots of room. I like 2 boxes
with no queen excluder. They use honey as insulation. so I
always will have honey in one box. Three short single boxes
equals one "deep".

Jerry Mc Carter: You must get the old frames out every so often.
Question: I built a top-bar hive and put it into a friend's garden
and a swarm was quickly attracted. How do I proceed?
Come to Beekeeping 101. If pollen has been brought in, they
have babies and a queen.

Lots of beekeepers use white dots on their queens, rather than
the official color for this year because the white is so much easier
to see.

Mark Allen: Our library is much bigger now than what is shown
on the web.
Clint Venable made a motion to adjourn the meeting. The
motion was seconded by Mark Hoppe and carried unanimously.
Meeting adjourned at 9:30 PM. Next meeting will be in our
usual room on March 26, 2009 at 7 PM.

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

valter
Apicultor

Din: C-ta.
Inregistrat: acum 16 ani
Postari: 509

Mosule,am cateva f16 si b 52 langa bloc, baietii construiesc la m kogalniceanu o noua baza NATO. hAI SA PUNEM DE-O COLABORARE. Daca trimite negrul avionul 1 va putem trimite miere bio la pret de conventionala, oricum voi bagati la OMG la greu.
Stupina-i gata, vecina cu baza NATO, pe plopilor nr. 1.
era sa uit, am citit tot ce-ai postat, sunt bet crita si-am inteles tot.
Voi faceti proces verbal la intruniri?

Modificat de valter (acum 15 ani)

_______________________________________

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

Ai tu asa ceva langa bloc?

18.1KB

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

Sa nu mai vb de B52 ca ala e cat blocul.
Dar oricum ma indoiesc ca ai tu acolo miere bio la un pret convenabil. $4kg transportata.
Da, la fiecare intrunire se face proces verbal si se distribuie cate o copie la fiecare.

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (BASC)

Mark Allen, President (562) 494-6844 or (562) 505-2768

Mark Hoppe, Vice President (562) 841-9754

Linda Sun, Secretary (951) 676-6917

Donald Mitchell, Treasurer (310) 327-5345

e-mail: or

Web site:

PO Box 992 La Mirada, CA 90637-0992

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL MEETING APRIL 23, 2009
MEETINGS: 6:30 PM on the Fourth Thursday, except Thanksgiving and

   Christmas, of course, at the City of La Mirada Community

   Resource Center located at 13710 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada

   CA 90638

CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 7 PM by our President, Mark Allen with 66

people present. Bob Maxon, who founded this club, had just died and his

wife Mary talked to us about the early days. She was happy to see such a

large crowd here. Fred Hesper said that if it had not been for Mary and Bob,

we would not be here.

Ron Hoyle explained what we would be learning at Beekeeping 101 which

will begin at 10 AM in Upland on April 25, 2009. A question was asked as to

how to make the box square. Ron replied that a carpenter's square should be

used and once it has been nailed together it stays square.

Martha Haber asked if Ron and Jerry would be demonstrating a split and Ron

answered yes, but there will be a lot of people there, so it might not be easy to

see. Remember not to wear perfume or after shave to unnecessarily attract

the bees. We will have extra veils and gear and these will be loaned to new

people. The club is providing lunch. To the question as to whether or not

parking will be an issue, Jerry noted that people might have to walk half of a

block. Ron's phone number is (909) 234-6339.

Dick Dyer mentioned that it is more important to shower that day than to avoid

sweet scents.

TREASURER'S REPORT

Don Mitchell gave the treasurer's report, indicating that the checking account

held $495.01 and the Certificate of Deposit totalled $10,893.40. The checking

account balanced.

Linda Sun moved to accept the Treasurer's report as presented. The motion

was seconded by Guy Levine and carried unanimously.

The Secretary noted that copies of the March minutes had been e-mailed to

all who provided addresses and that additional copies were available today

for those who were new or had no e-mail.

Martha Haber moved to accept the minutes of March 2009 as presented. The

motion was seconded by Ron Hoyle and carried unanimously.

Our web site is

Russ Levine showed us photos of the fellows who brought the bees down from

the almond orchards. They brought down 112 hives for us, full of bees. There

were photos of the hives being inspected, checking for brood and queens. All

of the hives were built with 1 by 2 frames on top to be able to put patties in and the sugar water feeder screws into the top. The hives were on pallets, 6 hives to a pallet, with no bottom boards because the pallet is one big bottom board.

Dave Mendes and his son were there and Dave is talking with the Bayer Group

about bringing the lab guys in. There are thousands of bees and each brings a

little microbe back. Dave Mendes writes a column in a beekeeping magazine.

The hives were loaded with a Bobcat fork lift which pivots on its third wheel. The

bees coming back did not know where to return. They drifted back slowly and I

could actually look into their eyes. These guys (girls) were out of Florida and

wanted to get home. We did not screen or net the hives. The hives were

positioned face-to-face on the truck. We drove 170 miles straight back to

Tujunga and returned at 5 AM the next day and brought them to Jerry's house.

Two brood boxes were screwed together with a metal strap and strapped to the

pallet. It was chilly that morning so it was easy to lift the boxes off and put each onto a bottom board without losing many bees. The boxes were in very good condition, but not well painted. These boxes were brand new to only 1 year old and were wood with plastic Pierco frames. Most weighed about 70 pounds and were ready for supers. Using that aluminum lifter saved our backs.

Didk Dyer brought a nucleus with five frames to show to the club and showed

us how to tie wild honey comb onto a frame. Tie a string with about 7 inches

extra hanging loose on one side of the frame and knot it at the top. Tie the

string in a triangular fashion; you can lay the frame down and put the comb on,

then turn it over and tie it on the other side. Don't try to do this on the way to

work in the morning; do it when there are no other jobs to do. Smoke the bees several times.

Jerry Mc Carter cautioned us not to turn the comb upside down as the honey

will spill out. Take a wild beehive and comb with babies and all of this is put into a new box. Leave it as is and the bees will repair it themselves and attach the comb. The ideal string is cotton and when the bees are through with it they will tear it apart and you will see string hanging out the front of the hive.

Question: Do we want to put the new comb into the middle of a hive?

Dick: Yes, Move the other frames to the side and put the new frames

into the middle of the hive.

Jerry: I add two new frames to each hive every year, removing two older

frames.

Dick: If you want a swarm to go into a box, take a "nuc", a nucleus which is half of a hive and hang it in a tree with a lot of wax as a "catcher hive". But you will be inviting hive moths. Wax is what they want, but this is a good way to catch bees. My catcher hives are mounted on a pulley and when I see bees going in and out, I bring the hive down with the pulley and close up the bottom, which has been open until then. I use 1 by 12 wood and 5 frames of different sizes and the box has one inch holes drilled all around for entrance and exit. The dado cuts and the long sides extend past the top so that the raw dado cuts are protected from any rain annd the end parts can be sacrificed.

New beekeeper: I spent time with Dick Dyer and got a swarm. I was so

much at ease after working with Dick, so thanks a lot. I am a glassblower too,

so I made this glass piece with a bee inside for Dick as a thank you present.

Guy Levine: A friend needs 12 pounds of grapefruit honey.

Dick Dyer brought 6 jars of honey tonight.

Mark Allen: The beekeeping industry uses one deep and the smaller size

on top.

Dick Dyer: One deep needed for the queen, but two deeps can be used as

that works well for splitting. One deep is not quite enought for all of the brood,

so one and a half is used.

Mark Allen: I have some photos to my road trip up north to pick up packaged

bees. Use sugar water containers on top of hives. You cannot inspect them.

The queen comes from a queen breeder and she is put in, them bees are

dumped into a funnel held over the box. They can tell the proper weight of

the bees, which should not be held in this box more than 72 hours. If they

shake bees from different colonies they should be together for 48 hours. In a

single day, thousands of buyers come in. A 3-pound option could be

purchased for $75.00. Next-day air costs an additonal $40.00.

Question: Do they wet the bees before putting them into a package?

Mark: Yes, they have a small sprayer and I sprayed them every once in a

while on the way home. They gave me an extra queen in case I needed her,

and sure enough I did. I also bought 10 queens to re-queen my hives. A

queen costs $18.00 to $20.00 plus shipping, so it is about $40.00 to $45.00

per queen.

Question: Why is Glenn so expensive?

Mark: He is a queen breeder with pedigrees going way back on his queens.

Here is a photo of the seedless mandarin growers netting all of their citrus

trees so that visits by bees will not make the fruit seedy. The bees are

"trespassing" in their groves according to the growers.

Guy Levine: Would they like a restraining order against each bee?

Mark: If the queen cells are on the edge of a frame in the spring they are

swarm cells. Some bees swarm many times. I scraped them all off. Here are

some photos of hives placed in orchards with deeps and mediums above. I

get $15.00 to $40.00 for a one month season in March, then $25.00 per month

afterward. If you talk to enough people, they ask for your bees. I found

vandalism in some places and moved my bees out of there. When you

register your bees, you should post a sign saying "honey bees" and include

information about yourself. I have hives here and in Fallbrook and I check

them once a week, every week.

Wax cappings: you can melt and sell the wax. It takes a long time to move

boxes by hand. If honey is in a 90 degree room if flows well, but if you heat

honey it can get nasty, so be careful. Norm Cary's operation in Visalia has

20,000 hives. He sells honey wholesale in 55 gallon barrels. He makes and

sells the best patties. Cary's Honey Farms has a million hives with drawn comb

ready to go into the fields. He uses an articulating forklift for tight spots which

can go around trees easily. Cary's Honey is in Lindsay, California and the

phone number is (559) 562-1110.

Here are some photos of (Red Bennett's Honey in Ventura?). The honey is

all gravity filtered after going through baffles which skim off stuff from the top of

the honey. They use a horizontal extractor. He sells retail and also will extract

your hney and keeps all the wax, which he sells to Kleenex. It goes into a

settling tank and you pick up the bottled honey and go sell it.

The meeting adjourned at 9:25 PM.

Respectfully submitted,    Linda Sun, Secretary

Next meeting is May 28, 2009 at 6:30 PM.

We have been invited to Glenn Apiaries in Fallbrook on June 20, 2009 at

10 AM. Tom and Suki Glenn are the queen breeders who send their

pedigreed queens all over to other queen breeders. This is a really

enlightening experience and for those who have not been there, artificial

insemination is demonstrated, transferring the infinitesimally small queen

larvae into queen cups, clever hive arrangements, melting wax safely, and

many other delightful things. Bring lunch and a bee suit or at least a veil.

The address is 40521 De Luz Road; phone is (760) 728-3731 and e-mail is

If you need a map, use the Riverside Thomas Guide

at page 976 at F7, but you go off the map a bit.

Here are the directions: ALLOW PLENTY OF EXTRA TIME TO DRIVE

Once you get off Rancho California the speed limits go down to 25 mph

and even 20 mph and plan to use a lower gear for some of the hills.

Take the 215 or the 15 south (they merge) and exit at Rancho California Rd.

Turn right from the off ramp and go up the hill 5 miles to the end of Rancho

California (coming home, use a lower gear down this road at the loops)

Make a slight left onto De Luz Rd and go 6.3 miles to the county line, where

you will see a green sign reading San Diego County Line and that last mile

in Riverside county has road work going on (be careful, there are no more

cross streets from here on).

De Luz Road becomes De Luz Murrieta Road, so keep going another 3.1

miles. You will begin seeing a few tiny green signs on your left reading

"mile 1.5" then "mile 1.0". There will be a small school on your left, then

there is a big yellow and black T.

Just after the T, you will make and extremely sharp right turn onto a different

De Luz Road and travel 0.7 miles (portions unpaved, but you won't go that

far). You will pass Calle Roxanne and end at a big yellow sign reading,

"End County Maintained Road" and you will see the Glenn mailbox. (Don't

continue on De Luz here or you will be at the Gourd Farm.) Make a slight

right of the mailbox onto that unpaved road, then there will be a sign reading,

"Glenn 40521". Go to the left of the sign and that short road curves around

to the right and you have arrived. ALLOW EXTRA DRIVING TIME.

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

albina proletara
Vizitator

Domnule AndreiRN,
La romani este greu de facut un club apicol(si nu numai)sa functioneze pentru simplul motiv ca toata lumea vrea sa fi sef si lucrurle nu ar merge bine.
Dupa parerea mea cluburile locale joaca un rol de frunte in alte tari.
Ati vedea un club local facut din membrii de pe acest forum?

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

Adevarat ce spuneti.
La romani e greu si o asociatie de 2 persoane si de aici si problemele.
2 ani de zile am fost presedintele clubului columbofil local TOPER si pot spune ca a fost o placere voluntara.
Aici un aspect al cooperitivizari in agricultura functioneaza de zeci de ani ff bine.
Clubul meu apicol BASC ofera extractor pe gratis oricui are nevoie ca sa nu mai vb de alte facilitati.

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (BASC)

Mark Allen, President
Mark Hoppe, Vice President
Linda Sun, Secretary
Donald Mitchell, Treasurer
Web site:
PO Box 992 La Mirada, CA 90637-0992
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL MEETING MAY 28, 2009

MEETINGS: 6:30 PM on the Fourth Thursday, except Thanksgiving and

Christmas, of course, at the City of La Mirada Community
Resource Center located at 13710 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada
CA 90638

CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 7:05 PM by our President, Mark Allen with
55 people present.
Secretary: The Secretary had e-mailed copies of the April minutes to all who
had electronic addresses and had provided copies at this meeting for all those
who were not connected to the Internet. Jerry Kinder moved to accept the
minutes as presented and Wally Weidhaas (spelling?) (not a member?)
seconded the motion, which was carried over one "nay" vote.
Approximately 85 people attended Beekeeping 101 in Upland and a profess-
ional photographer took photos.
A Power Point slide show will be presented of last year's visit to Glenn Apiaries.
This year our invitation is for June 20th for their open house in Fallbrook. They
keep many generations of breeding records for their queens and artificial
insemination will be demonstrated among many other interesting bee subjects.
Suggestion: It would be better to receive the minutes 3 days to one week prior
to the meeting.
Suggestion: At some club functions people being their own cups for coffee and
we could "bee green" by doing this also.
Question: How long from the time the new queen exits her cell until she begins
laying eggs?
Mark Allen: Sometimes it can be two weeks because she must first mate with
drones, so that is an advantage in buying queens because they are already
laying.
Ron Hoyle showed us the slides of the last visit to Glenn Apiaries. Here is Tom
Glenn filling larvae into queen cells. In the Glenn's bee yard there are really
gentle bees; each of us should have a veil, but the bees are very tolerant. Here
are the queen cells on a frame. The hives are divided into 4 hives per box with
separate entrances/exits. Here Tom is eviscerating a drone to use the semen.
He raises his own drones too. In the lab he puts the queen to sleep by
anesthetizing her prior to insemination. Tom numbers everything so that he has
complete records. His bees and their records are sent all over the world and
cost $200 to $300 to $400.00. Maybe only 6 people do this work. His queens go
to queen breeders. Here is a photo of hives hanging from trees to avoid ants.
Mark Allen: Susan Cobey teaches insemination of queens at UC Davis. She is
shown on video. First you must take a 3-day class from her, then you can take
another 3-day class on artificial insemination. Each class is $200.00. You can
also buy the equipment from her, which costs about $2500.00. The first class
explains all the breeding and is mostly done out in the field. You need to sign up
one year in advance. They do pollination biology there at UC Davis.
Russ Levine had the photographer take photos of the Upland set-up. People
were suiting up and Russ' son and wife were in suits. Russ gave us a Hive
Inspection Sheet which is also on our web site. It is nicely done and gives the
keeper an organized look at each hive.
Mark Allen took a queen and put her into a candy package as though she was
newly arrived.
Here is a close-up of bees and a shot of the group examining a frame. There
were photos of a queen amid her workers.
Clint Venable: It makes you a "revolutionary" to kill the queen.
Mark Allen: Each pupa spins a silk coccoon which stays in the cell when she
leaves. Since that is often not removed, subsequent bees being born get
gradually smaller and smaller.
Russ Levine: Dave Mendes said that he replaces his frames every two years
now to avoid having tiny bees. Here is a group shot of the attendees and one
of Jim Mieras demonstrating the hot knife.
Mark Allen: In Africa a hive has more bees than honey because they eat it up
fast and they swarm often. I bring a digital camera everywhere, because things
show up that I hadn't seen at first when taking the picture. All bees are shaken
into a box. If the smell of the hive is concentrated in a vacuum it comes out of
the vacuum too. I don't tie in the brood when removing comb. I put a couple
of pieces smashed between 2 frames and remove it after a few days. I was
getting stung through my gloves here. The lady here had exterminators out
twice and they sprayed, but did not clean up the wax and combs, so the bees
kept coming back. Smoke did nothing. There is a non-smelly version of Bee
Go called Bee Quick. It works well as a spray and smells like Amaretto.
Andrei Nastase: Wild bees are more aggressive than bees in a hive. I use
ammonia to quiet them.
Mark showed us a photo of a large white plastic bucket. The bees were hitting
the black handle of the bucket like a machine gun, but it was the handle only.
The chartreuse green Piergo frames have bigger cells for drones and I put 2 or
3 into the middle of a hive and the queen starts laying only drones in these
frames. You can time it; from the time you put in the green frames the drones
are ready to hatch in 24 days. Take the Piergo frames out 2 days before hatch
date and replace those with new frames. Put the old ones into a freezer. The
mites always favor drone cells for laying their eggs. If you open a drone cell you
will see mites pouring out. Mites can replicate very fast; if I see a few, I actually
have tons. No chemicals are involved with the freezer method and it can be
done in the middle of the season. These chartreuse frames are only $4.00 each.
The freezing kills the mites unborn. But if you let the green frames stay in for
30 days your mite population will really increase instead of decreasing. Beeswax
dries really quickly and the bees don't like it if it sat around a while.
Sellers of frames say to spray a new frame with sugar water to encourage the
bees to begin building out the cells, but if you use honey instead it works better.
You can brush melted wax onto new frames too.
You can put in the short frames and the bees will extend these into "deeps".
Drones are made all year except for the cold months.
A one-inch tall piece of wood nailed together into a square is placed on top of
the hive body before the lid is put on. This extra space makes it easier for
treatments or for putting patties on top.
Mite Away should be used in January, February, only when it is cool.
Thymol cannot be used when the bees are making honey. It has a strong smell,
but it is not toxic to people. Bees need to be able to crawl through it and it knocks
down mites.
Russ Levine: Deforned wings means that there are mites in the hive.
Mark Allen: Virus and parasites.
Question: How often can you use powdered sugar? It could be every 2 weeks,
once a month, once every two months.
Mark Allen: Mites look like crabs with suction-cup feet. Sprinkling powdered
sugar over bees means that the mites cannot stay attached. Use a bottom board
so that the mites fall outside of the hive or else it is a waste.
If honey is all over the bottom it means that you have probably lost the queen.
The bees start plugging up empty cells with honey.
I look for dwindling and wax moths.
Guy Levine: A sheet of newspaper across the top of a deep keeps the heat in
and only a small slit is made on one side for the bees to come up through it and
they produce honey like crazy.
Lots of queen cells hanging off the side of frames means that the colony is about
to swarm.
You want to see a brood in the almond hives. If not used in almond, you get a
lower rental price.
Has anyone tried the plastic hive bodies? They are expensive and wood is used
to avoid moisture. We need moisture control and wood releases and absorbs it.
If you have a hive positioned incorrectly it gets furry inside from mold.
A plastic bucket on its side, nailed to a pole can be used to feed pollen or a
substitute; in 30 seconds the bees are on it. A pollen substitute does not get
stored by the bees, only eaten when it is available. A patty grows mold and stinks.
Making sugar water and patties is expensive.
A tub of water with plants floating in it is a necessity. Keep it 100 to 1,000 feet away
from the hive. If the water is too close to the hive they cannot tell the others about
it. It should be 100+ feet away. The plants in the water give a smell for the bees to identify. The wouldn't be able to smell it without the plants.

They cannot find sugar syrup if it is fresh. Put a drop of honey into it and they find
it immediately.

Russ Levine: I am trying to coordinate the LA County Fair. We do this every year
with the LA County club and the booth is right next to the pony rides and the Agri-
culture displays. Last year $10,000.00 went to the LA club and $700.00 went to us.
Clyde is not doing it this year. He always used his vacation to do it. We need to
sell a jar of honey for each jar of honey that LA sells. The fair is Sept 2 to Oct 5
Wednesdays through Sundays. The fair is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. We
need to get prepared. It is free to get in if you work the booth. We give out parking passes and tickets.
Lynn had a brand new box with her for sale tonight.
Jim: I need to see if a kindergarten in Whittier needs a speaker on bees.
The meeting adjourned at 9:10 PM. Next meeting is June 25, 2009 at 6:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Linda Sun, Secretary

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (BASC)

Mark Allen, President (562) 494-6844 or (562) 505-2768
Mark Hoppe, Vice President (562) 841-9754
Linda Sun, Secretary (951) 676-6917
Doug Fieri, Treasurer    (909) 967-6761

e-mail: or
Web site:
PO Box 992 La Mirada, CA 90637-0992
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL MEETING JULY 23, 2009

MEETINGS: 6:30 PM on the Fourth Thursday, except Thanksgiving and

   Christmas, of course, at the City of La Mirada Community

   Resource Center located at 13710 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada

   CA 90638

CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 7:03 PM by Russell Levine with 33 people
present. The President, Vice-President and Treasurer were not present.
Mark Allen went to Fresno for supplies and Doug Fieri went on a trip to the
river.

Previous minutes:
The Secretary had e-mailed the minutes of June 25th to all of the members
who had e-mail and provided copies at this meeting for anyone who had not
received a copy. Martha Haber moved to accept the minutes as presented.
Guy Levine seconded the motion and it carried.

Russ showed us an internet video of a queen hatching in the hive.
Beekeeping 101 will be given again in August or September at Jerry
Mc Carter's house, which is actually in San Antonio Heights, (not Upland) at
the northern end of Euclid street. Demonstrations will be given and necess-
ary equipment will be discussed. A package of bees will be installed and
setting up honey extraction will be demonstrated and members are welcome
to try their hands at it.

Rull Levine is coordinating the Los Angeles County Fair with the LA bee club.
Set-up will be on Labor Day, Monday, September 7th, then the Fair is closed
Tuesday and after that the Fair runs Wednesdays through Sundays, closing
October 5th. The school children come in from 9AM to noon. It is a good
time to talk to people. There will be a sign-up box outside Russ' house and
we can pick up stuff there or at Doug Fieri's house. Russ' address is 1926
Lemonwood Street and Doug's address is 820 Glenlea. Both are in
La Verne, zip code 91750.

Bill Lewis is the President of the LA club and he arranges the booth and
honey sticks. Honey can be sold in jars or donated to the club and profits
can go to the club or to the beekeeper. Russ' crop is down 40 to 60% due to
the drought. Inside the booth at the Fair there is no place to sit. The pony
rides area is where the bee talks will be given, just across from our booth.
The LA club has a teaching hive and the "frames" inside are bee info cards.

Russ went to Glenn Apiaries where they talked about hygienic bees and
these bees clean out the cells and remove mites. You can use liquid
nitrogen in coffee cans and pour it over the larvae and the bees clean it out.
(Oregon State Beekeeping shows this on line.) Or you can take the frames
out and put them into a freezer for 2 days which kills the mites and the bees
will clean it all out when the frames are returned to them. Mites weaken the
hive.
"Things to Look for When you Observe Your Hive". Small hive beetles are
out there. Inside, it looks like fermenting honey when you have the hive
beetle. Hygienic bees can also dispose of TRACHEAL MITES. A study on
this is available. Chalk brood larvae look like mummified larvae; it comes
from a spore and there is no treatment available except to re-queen.
Foulbrood spreads from hive to hive. Mite removal; now is the time to try to
knock it out. If your hive goes into fall and winter with mites, you may not have bees in the spring. Powdered sugar dusting is best done with a screened
bottom board, otherwise the mites that fall off will climb right back onto a new
bee. Mites will be unable to hang on when sugar coats the bees and will fall
out through the screen. You can put a tray of water underneath and count
how many mites were removed. Do the powdered sugar once a month. A
cornstarch-powdered sugar mix is OK and helps when using the Bellows
Blower from Brushy Bee, which works just fine. You must shake it up in the
blower. Glory Bee has the same thing for $19.95. It works well and is good
preventative maintenance. Remove the top cover with the leading edge
away from you. The bees will still fly out and not be happy, but it is harder for
them to find you. Watch where you step as the bees will land on the ground
and on the grass around the hive.

Dick Dyer: the place to check for mites is in the drone cells. We can sacrifice
many drones without it being a problem for the hive. There are a lot of babies
in the spring, but not so much in the fall. Mites don't do their brood cycle
unless the bees do their brood cycle.

Andrei Nastase: I use a plywood bottom board and staple 1/8 inch screen to
the underside of the board. Andrei brought a board which measured 19 1/2 "
by 24 ". The cut-out screened hole measured 12 " by 15 " and began 2 1/2"
from the back edge. He used 2 by 3 inch strips on the underneath along 3
sides to provide air flow.

Fumagillin drench is used for Nosema apis or Nosema ceranae (the Asiatic
honeybee). The hives should be tilted forward a little so that water or other
liquids cannot collect at the back. The Nosema parasite can decimate a hive
in 2 weeks. Bees get dysentery and you will see yellow streaks. Every hive
with Colony Collapse Disorder also has Nosema. The tiny spores of Nosema
fit into a bee's tracheal tube. One bee has 22 million spores of Nosema.
Look at Randy Oliver's site: scientificbeekeeping.com It has good slides.

If you see multiple eggs in a cell you have an egg-laying worker. Wax moths
are common. If you have old comb and are trying to re-cycle it, note that the
moths have a symbiotic relationship with the bees, but it can get out of control.
The moths burrow and chew right into the wood and eat your frames and hive
parts. They like to lay along the bottom of frames and they smell bad too.

Dick Dyer: The bees do not recognize the mother moth, but they recognize
her smell and they tear apart the comb and rebuild it. Take out the damaged
part yourself with a knife.

We should have a series of topics and have an "Ask the Experts" thing. New
members need to know what to do now (each month) and what will be need-
ed so we can plan ahead. We need a monthly format for what to do and the
focus would be one or two months out. A monthly chore list would be good.

Andrei Nastase: Lemon juice is good for Nosema. Three fresh lemons per
each two-liter bottle of sugar water. Also wormwood tea or mint tea works too.

Dick Dyer: Put questions down on paper or e-mail them. Hive Management,
A Seasonal Guide for Beekeepers by Richard Bonney is a good book and is
available from Barnes and Noble. Even though it is printed in Massachusetts
the practices are the same with only slight differences.
We need information for California. It should be standard at meetings: What
to Do This Month.

Martha Haber: we should have a program chair for what to do every month
and have someone available to answer emergency questions; a phone bank
or e-mail.

Jim Mieras: After sitting through 2 hours of miscellany in another club whose
name won't be mentioned, I asked, "Shouldn't we talk about bees now?"

Russell Levine: At Glenn Apiaries the hives were divided up with tiny frames,
but Brushy Bee has a queen castle divided into 4 long sections with 4 queens
per box, but it's better to have 3 sections, not 4, and separate exits cut into
the bottom board edges. With 3 queens they lay better.

Question: How often should we inspect our hives? Two or three times per
week if you are a new beekeeper. You need to get accustomed to it. It is
more important to learn than to worry about bothering the bees.

Jerry Mc Carter: If you are real gentle, the bees won't mind it.

Dick Dyer: Start at the number one outside frame and pull up gently to avoid
squashing bees. If you see eggs in the cells you don't need to check for a
queen. If wax moths took over there was too much wax available for the
number of bees.

Yellow Jackets sting bees.

Question: Is there a source for bees this time of year?

Clint Venable: It is not worth it to split hives now. Order packages by Sept.

Andrei Nastase: I started the beginning of the month to make queens. I
harvested a brood with fresh eggs. It had 7 queen cells and I saved 6 of
them and made a jail for queens. I cut the "peanuts" off and put them into
hives with two frames of brood and a queen cell. I will have queens in
another two weeks. I am taking frames of broods to make bees and am
making both queens and bees. My phone number is (562) 903-0054.

When you get a queen she has 10 days to mate with the "street drones"
and our baby bees are "mutts".
Dick Dyer: Lots of people worry about breeding Africanized bees. We
anticipated a big problem. There were some mean bees coming into
Long Beach coming in on ships and in San Diego County coming across
the border. It works well if we let them breed naturally. Now we are look-
ing for "survivor bees".

We are "Darwinian beekeepers".
Andrei Nastase: Bees need 92 degrees F in the hive and they have a
"swamp cooler". Water for the bees should be at least 10 or 20 feet away
from the hive. If it is too close, they can't tell the other bees where to find
it. The top has a 3-inch hole through the plywood and the water has only
a couple of teaspoons of sugar in it, so it is slightly sweet and the bees use
this to cool the hive. We need to feed them sugar and protein. I mix sugar
and two eggs in a blender and the juice of 2 or 3 lemons. Or I use mile
and sugar and eggs in a blender to feed them. I give them ice cream. Ice
cream is one way to gain weight and they need that; it melts fast on a tray.

Guy Levine: Do you massage their feet too?

Dick Dyer: On the "What to Do Next Month" topic. A new hive is some-
what behind and needs help to build up. It is ideal that those bees have
another hive next to them and you can put honey into the new hive.
Brood from the stronger hive can be put into the weaker hive. That's why
most beekeepers don't have just one hive. I have seen Blue Jays take
bees; they rub the bee against a tree trunk until the stinger is gone, then
they eat the bee. Put newspaper sheets between the supers and the
bees get used to it. A couple of hives died off with my help; I used a
plastic trash bag with sugar inside and dry ice. I tied it up and they were
all dead in three days. This is only used for fierce Africanized bees.
Drones should be gotten rid of.

Re-queening: bees do it themselves every 3 or 4 years. Commercial
breeders do it every year, due to the chance of Africanized bees and all
they chemicals they use. You can read the front of your hive; watch the
traffic coming and going. Don't stand right in front; give them their flight
path. When smoking them keep the top toward you so they see blue
sky first and not you. When smoked the bees should be gorging on
honey. If not, they should be re-queened next week.

There are two genes for hygeinic behavior - uncappping and removing.
If you see white bees only uncapping is going on, not removing mites.

Dick Dyer: This time of year, I harvest in September, but prepare for it
now. I have inspected each hive and put colored tape on the hives
which need honey extracted. When honey is removed you have a
wet and sticky hive. Honey flow is minimal now, so no extra supers are
needed. Put an empty super on with a hole and stack empty supers on
top and bees will clean out the "attic". I store my supers that way
because I have no garage or other place to keep them. I don't use a
queen excluder because it slows down the traffic. I put a new super in
between and use the bees for clean up.

Question: How do you store used frames of empty comb?

Jerry Mc Carter: Three frames with moth crystals in a bag, but you
can't do this if you have 400 frames to store.

Clint Venable: Put the frames in a freezer for 3 days; then seal them
TIGHTLY so that moths cannot get in.
Bernie Kilcher fixed 2 gears and the bearings of the club extractor and
brought it back.

The meeting adjourned at 9 PM. Next meeting will be August 27, 2009.
Respectfully submitted, Linda Sun, Secretary

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

filip
Apicultor

Din: Aninoasa.Hd.Stupii in jud Arad
Inregistrat: acum 17 ani
Postari: 1832

Andrei toate bune si frumoase daca am fi inteles si unii dintre noi care au fost la scoala la profa de RUSA

Pe viitor cateva cuvinte in limba lu'EMINESCU daca se poate

_______________________________________

pus acum 15 ani

milu56
Apicultor

Din: Almeria
Inregistrat: acum 16 ani
Postari: 1252

Bravo filipe,in acest club cred ca si limba albinei se intelege.

_______________________________________
Albina trebuie apreciata pentru organizare harnicie si igiena.

pus acum 15 ani

dedu
Apicultor

Din: Sebes
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 577

Unde i acest club?Prin Alba,Sibiu,Turda nu i vreunul(Alba mai ales)???

pus acum 15 ani

milu56
Apicultor

Din: Almeria
Inregistrat: acum 16 ani
Postari: 1252

Nui in Alba e la casa alba.

_______________________________________
Albina trebuie apreciata pentru organizare harnicie si igiena.

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

filip a scris:

Andrei toate bune si frumoase daca am fi inteles si unii dintre noi care au fost la scoala la profa de RUSA

Pe viitor cateva cuvinte in limba lu'EMINESCU daca se poate

Asa este dar Linda scrie tot ce se vb cuvant cu cuvant si e mult tare de tradus.
Cand se vb de ceva nou mai postez la topicul potrivit.

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 15 ani

AndreiRN
Apicultor

Din: Los Angeles
Inregistrat: acum 15 ani
Postari: 2417

Sambata, Dec 12 vom avea intalnirea clubului apicol BASC, Beekeepers Association of Southern California, de sfarsit de an si va avea loc la restaurantul North Woods Inn care este pe o tematica rustica. ... /index.php
Pe langa masa si cadouri si cunoastere sociala avem ca invitat pe Frank & Sheri Pendell care sunt producatori de matci din California. ... -262.phtml
Va fi un event placut chiar daca o sa am un program ff incarcat Sambata.

_______________________________________
320 de zile senine fac albinele fericite

pus acum 14 ani

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