Announcements
Next Meeting: There is NO MEETING in August.

The mext meeting will take place on Tuesday, September 13th, 7:30 P.M. at the West Barnstable Community Building on Route 149.

Formic Acid
Mite-AwayII, marketed by NOD Apiaries of Canada received Section 3 approval for use in honeybee hives by the USDA in January of this year. The Pesticide Board of the Mass. Dept of Agricultural Resources has deemed to also allow this formic acid product to be used on an as-needed basis by Massachusetts beekeepers, without any special licensing required.

For complete instructions on proper use of this product go to www.miteaway.com Mite-AwayII is available in pails of 10 treatments from Betterbee (www.betterbee.com, 800-632-3379) for $34.95. They have just received approval to ship via US Mail, and are currently awaiting approval from UPS.

We do not yet have a total of all sales, but the checks for member sales will be issued soon.

There were a few entries in honey and wax competitions, but we need more. We want to see that case filled with honey next year. Let them find another spot for the applesauce and jam!

Claire's Corner
Well, another Barnstable County Fair has come and gone. It was encouraging to see plenty of honey on the shelves after a slow response. Another adjustment in honey stix will need to be made again next year as they almost completely sold out. We understand that even the queen was visible for most of the week, not hiding behind all that burr comb. Her numbers increased dramatically over the nine days. The gardens, thanks to Leslie and Marte, provided the perfect combination of pollen and nectar for the girls, as little sugar syrup was consumed.

Did all of you workers and attendees peek in the glass case for a look at the apiary competition? Best of Show was a picture perfect bowl of fruit all done in beeswax as candles. The colors were so true and the molds without blemish. The single pair of candles were of a unique mold, a beautiful yellow wax, and without a flaw.

Save a few jars of this seasons honey for next year’s competition. Place them in one pound jars, overfill them a little and freeze them. Half of the honey in this year’s competition was disqualified due to excessive moisture content (over 18.6%). This is not always the fault of the beekeeper. Honey bees are not perfect, and at times will cap honey that is not quite ready. This summer, with its high humidity, will find a lot of less viscid honey. Remember, honey is a humectant and hydroscopic and will absorb moisture, if stored too long before being extracted.

Beeswax blocks for competition should be taken from washed honey cappings and not old brood foundation. The darker colors lose points and also do not have a pleasant beeswax aroma. The darker wax emits a burnt, or propolis-like odor.

As we emerge from this current dearth, where very little nectar is available, you must make a few observations. Aggressiveness is quite apparent when first opening the hive. Many foragers are laying about the hive and at times the honey stored in the shallows will be consumed, which is a real disappointment. As food supplies dwindle, the hive will sacrifice brood, first pulling out drone pupae and disposing of the bodies in front of the hive. This was recently observed by one of our “Newbees”.

Blossoms on the Sweet Pepper Bush seem prolific around the bogs and marshes. There has been no activity to date, but let us hope they will be heavy with nectar. Of course, goldenrod and asters will not be far behind. The Cone flowers and Queen Anne’s Lace currently is realizing a lot of activity.

August is the ideal time to determine your varroa count in the hive. Removing drone is not too accurate, but could give you some direction. If a number of drone pupae have 4 to 5 varroa each, you have a real problem. With only a few varroa per sample you might want to do a sugar roll. Using a small mason jar, screen the top with a piece of 8-mesh wire, add 1 to 2 teaspoons of confectionary sugar and 300 bees.

(Shake a few frames from the brood section into a box and scoop up a half-cupful of bees.) Roll for 30 to 60 seconds then invert and shake the jar over a small pan of water. The sugar will dissolve and the mites will float and be readily visible. At a recent conference, Jeff Pettis of the Beltsville USDA Bee Lab was reluctant to give a threshold but 30 to 50 mites spells trouble in the hive by late fall. Bees can safely be dumped back into the hive. And you can always slather up your sticky board with Crisco and go for a 3-day natural fall. There we know that a drop of 50 per day is considered a treatable level.

It is advisable to not treat if your numbers are significantly low. Most races of bees are able to tolerate low levels of mites in the hive. And with the use of IPM boards and measures, the numbers should be lower.

Betterbee recently sponsored a one-day conference. We heard Reg Wilbanks of Wilbanks Apiaries (where our packages come from) describe his operation and his frustrations over the past three years. The weather is a big factor when attempting to raise properly mated queens, and Mom Nature has not been overly cooperative.

Jeff Pettis spoke considerably on varroa and varroa control. Current research includes FGMO in the hive. The oil itself can provide a 30 to 50% drop in varroa, but more work is being done to test the effectiveness with the addition of various essential oils. A solution of oxalic acid and the use of powdered sugar also appear to have some value in controlling varroa. Timing and brood numbers must be taken into consideration.

If you are still hung up on the use of Apistan, test its effectiveness before adding your strips. At Beltsville, researchers take an index card and staple a 3/8” sliver of Apistan to it. Dump approx. 150 bees
into a screened mason jar containing the card. After 6 hours, shake the jar onto a sheet of white paper. If no varroa, your mites COULD/MIGHT be resistant to Apistan.

Lastly, Sue Phelan forwarded an excerpt from an article from a current issue of “Psychology Today”. Food for thought.

Sugary food like grapes and honey can also help improve memory, says frequent contributor Lauren Aaronson, because the brain is one of the few organs that draw all of their energy from glucose. Experiments have shown, she says, “that a dose of glucose-sweetened lemonade boosts recall of events, words, movements, drawings, and faces, among other things, with effects lasting long enough to get you through a two-hour exam.