Current Events
- Holiday Party (Monday, 21 Dec)
The fun and always entertaining Dr. Jim Tew to be our speaker for the evening. Dr. Tew has a fun and lively outlook on bees, beekeepers and our unusual beekeeping habits. You won’t be sorry you came !
This year we will again have an elegant Holiday meal catered by Old Schoolhouse Catering at our A.I. Root meeting room. The cost will be $5 and a wrapped present per person. - Beginner Beekeeper classes
MCBA will be conducting the Spring Beginner Beekeeping Class Twice this year - one session on 5 consecutive Wednesday nights, the other on 2 consecutive Saturdays. Class details are in the Calendar. Content will cover basic honey bee biology, getting started with honey bees, all the equipment you will need, fundamental management skills, harvesting your crop and preparing for winter. Students will be advised on kinds of equipment to purchase, where to get bees and how to handle problems. The instructor for these classes is Kim Flottum, Editor of Bee Culture magazine. Several members of the Medina Association will also be on hand and involved in giving demonstrations and assisting with the classes.
Cost for the class is $50.00 for an individual, and $60 for a family of 2 or more. For that fee students receive a 1 year membership in the Medina County Beekeepers Association, a copy of Beginner’s Book and a variety of magazines and catalogs from the beekeeping industry in addition to the course material.
Pre-registration is required so we know how to prepare, but fees can be made at the first class. There is no limit on the number of students in either class. To register for the class, or for additional information, please contact Kim Flottum at 330.722.2021 or Kim@BeeCulture.com.
See the calendar for more.
Picture of the Month
A prospective beekeeper studying the observation hive at the Medina County Fair
Picture submitted by Bob Gomola
click on the picture to expand
From the webmaster
Well, the website is finally updated. My apologies for the long delay. Unfortunately, part of the problem was related to a security breach we had with our webserver. You can read more about it here. No data was at risk (we don't keep any member records online) but the nature of the content was a bit worrying. We're back up and running now, though.
So here are a couple of things that have built up over time.
At last month's meeting, we collected the harvest report, the annual compilation of data to see how the harvest varies around the county and our tracking of how the harvest is changing over time. 2009 was a less-than-satisfactory year for most beekeepers in the county. The weather in spring was very promising but the summer and fall harvest was very poor in our area. More analysis is in this month's newsletter. Click the chart at right for a larger view of the consolidated history of our harvest over time or you can look at the detailed charts by quadrant here.
In other news, the Beginner Beekeeper class is being offered twice this year. See the newsletter for details and the calendar for the dates, times and the specific content to be covered in each class.
Several people started recording their own beeyard reports in the discussion forums this year. If you haven't yet, please consider creating an account and sharing your story, too. Create your account now and you'll be able to start the new year fresh. If you like, you can watchlist the discussion forums for email alerts about new comments and questions.
That's all for now. There's been some new research on CCD being discussed on BEE-L but we'll save that for next month. I'll do my best to keep the website more current. Thanks for your patience. See you all at the Holiday party.