See you Tuesday night for our SVBA May Club Meeting
May 2nd, 7:00 p.m. at Meadowbrook Farm
The Apiary Demo will start one hour prior to the meeting at 6 p.m.
Please join us on Tuesday night for our May club meeting at Meadowbrook Farm.
Our meeting schedule will be loosely structured as follows:
6:00-6:45: Apiary Demo
6:45-7:00: Grab a snack and find a seat
7:00-8:00 Guest speaker presentation/Q&A
8:00-8:15: Club Announcements/Grab another snack
8:15-8:30: Monthly To-Do’s/Q&A
8:30-9:00: Social time and clean up
Apiary Demo
The weather will be cooperating tomorrow and allow us the opportunity to have our first Apiary Demo of the year. Both of our club colonies survived the winter, a success worth celebrating. However, they aren’t out of the woods yet and work will need to be done to ensure their survival. Join Don and Jacob as they perform inspections to determine what each colony may need to grow into a successful honey-hoarding superorganism by the time the blackberry flow is on. Anyone wanting to attend and participate must bring their protective gear. Safety first!
This month’s guest speaker will be Dr. Nicholas Naeger from the WSU honey bee reseach program.
The title of Dr. Naeger’s talk is “Fungi to the rescue: Using fungi to feed bees and kill Varroa.” and it is sure to be a crowd-pleaser. After all, what beekeeper doesn’t like to hear about new ways to kill Varroa?
Dr. Nick Naeger is an entomologist and geneticist that has been researching honey bees for over half his life. Before joining the WSU honey bee research program, his doctoral work focused on the genetics of behavior where he documented how networks of genes in the honey bee brain turn on and off foraging or mating behavior. His current research seeks to find innovative ways to improve honey bee health. This includes using fungi to create better bee feed additives and using pathogenic fungi to kill Varroa mites.
There will be a brief presentation of the beeking To-Do’s for May and a Q&A session. New packages have been installed and overwintered hives are continuing to build up. Now what? This will be a brief presentation to go over the tasks for May and an opportunity to ask any questions.
We will finish the evening with social time, a great opportunity to meet and chat with your fellow local beekeepers!