BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA

President Tom Merz Denise Taylor 1st Vice President Laszlo Pentek 2nd Vice President Secretary Christopher Reed Treasurer Bennie Liles Newsletter editor Alan Fiala http://www.beekeepersnova.org Website In This Issue Next Meeting program BANV Arlington Co. Fair Report 2B A B 4H Report EAS 2007 Report Minutes of the May 2007 meeting Announcements 1 1 2 2 3 3

September-October 2007 Next Membership Meeting is Tuesday, September 25, 2007 7:30 p.m. Cafeteria, Falls Church High School 7521 Jaguar Trail Falls Church, VA 22042

Program for next meeting TBA The next membership meeting will be held Tuesday, September 25, 2007 in the cafeteria of Falls Church High School. There will be a program, but as of this writing the subject or speaker is not yet set. Arlington County Fair Participation in the annual county fair was in two parts: honey and wax show, and the sales booth. 10 members sold products in the booth. Gross sales were $7,140.00, ranging from $331.00 to $1576.50 for individuals. The booth sales have increased every year since 2001, when the gross was $3,947.25. In the show, entrants were more diversified as there were entries from the 4H club members and one youth independent. However, there were not enough entries overall to have a Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion. There was a Champion ribbon awarded to Whitney Long, last years Reserve Grand Champion. In the Adult Division, Light Extracted Honey, 1st to Whitney Long, 2nd to Alan Fiala, 3rd to Pat Haskell, 4H 1st to Hannah Markowitz. Medium Extracted Honey, 1st to Tom Merz, 2nd to Tom Greiner, 3rd to Ted Pratt, 4H 1st to Daniel Bachman. Dark Extracted Honey, 1st to Ted Pratt. Creamed Honey, 1st to Pat Haskell. Comb Honey, 1st to Chris Reed, 2nd to Mirza Halilovic, 3rd to Whitney Long, Honorable Mention to Tom Greiner. There were no entries in wax. 2 B A Bee 4H Club Report Brenda Kiessling, Leader 4-h is going to have another exciting year two programs I know about are a trip to the Smithsonian insect zoo and their observation hive with their entomologist to talk to

Future meetings of BANV The meeting room is frequently changed without notice please check at the door for announcements. September 25, 2007 November 27, 2007 Falls Church HS Falls Church HS

Other Meetings of Interest Nov 3, 2007 Weyers Cave, VA VSBA Winter meeting MaryAnn Frazier, Mike Embrey Nov 10, 2007 Annapolis, MD MSBA Winter Meeting Nov 17, 2007 TBA Southern New England BK Assembly
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Join the informal discussion of beekeeping experiences among the club. To subscribe, just send a message to BANV-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, that you are a member of BANV. and say

BANV Newsletter, September 2007

us and a program with the Houlahan kids (ages 13 and 15) who run Hives for Lives (google it and see what they have done!). I know these kids, got Carly and her grandma to go to EAS this yearand they learned how to make soap and hand cream and had so much fun! During the early part of the summer, 4-H had a guided tour of Wyatt Mangums historical beekeeping tools/artifacts etc. Fairfax County 4-H Fair, was Saturday and Sunday, August 4-5. It was HOT,HOT,HOT! 2 B A BEE had its demonstration table, with posters, Beekeeper Bob the full size scarecrow beekeeper who welcomes people, and an observation hive provided by club member Hannah Markowitz. A number of interested youngsters signed up to think about joining the 4-H club. Prizes for honey and wax competition were won by Hannah Markowitz, Daniel Bachman, Elena Bachman, Peter Garbacz. There were entries in extracted honey, cut comb (wow), candles (!), and block of wax. Prizes were also won in other categories such as crafts, scrapbook, and painting. Congratulations are in order to all who entered. Three 4-H families were in other parts of the world during the 4-H Fair (China, Scotland, travels in U.S.) and the club is very grateful for those BANV members who gave of their time and helped man the club table. Fairfax Chairman Gerald Connolly stopped, was interested, said he wanted to know why the bees were disappearing, but could not stayhe had to hurry away to give the keynote address to start the Fair. Two 2 B A BEE members made entries in the Arlington County Fair (August 15-19, 2007). Hannah Markowitz won first place with her extracted honey in the Teen category; Daniel Bachman won first place with his extracted honey in the Youth category. Congratulations to you both! EAS 2007 Report from Brenda Kiessling I can't tell you everything about EAS-you'll have to go for yourself. It is an experience. But I can tell you about some of the information I learned. I'm just going to choose one speaker.
BANV Newsletter, September 2007 2

I'd like to tell you about Heather Mattila. She is a star. She received the EAS Graduate Student Award in 2003 and is currently a post-doc researcher with Tom Seeley at Cornell, studying genetic diversity in bee colonies. Her PhD. (Guelph, Ontario, 2005) research work centered around the role of pollen in development of honey bees. I was not able to attend EAS 2002 where others heard her so I was glad to catch up at this EAS. Just a few things she told us about pollen: --no pollen is complete with all the essential amino acids that bees need. (Dandelion is the closest but it lacks arginine). Bees get their protein from pollen; amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. So bees need a diversity-as many different kinds of pollen as possible. --She recommended feeding pollen. Even if you use pollen substitute, add 5-10% real pollen. --her research showed that if a colony is fed pollen it has 19,000 more workers. --you can collect 4-5 lbs pollen the previous fall-it won't take long, store it (frozen, and without air as much as possible, e.g. in a freezer zip lock bag with the air expressed), and add it to the early spring pollen substitute patty. Feed this 6-8 weeks before the natural pollen flow in Spring. Once you begin to feed it, don't stop until the natural pollen comes in. --at room temperature, pollen loses 75% of its nutritional value over a year. So freeze it. It is good for about a year if frozen. --when feeding it, make it into a moist and place the patty less than 5 cm. the brood nest (NOT very far!)--the won't move to get food if they are in ter. patty from bees clus-

--if you are using a recipe to make pollen substitute and it calls for skim milk powder, be sure to use what it says--you need a really low lactose content (and lactose is in milk) since bees can't digest lactose and it gives them diarrhea. --researchers ask questions like "why do the bees want to eat the pollen?" (we still don't know she talked about "phagostimulant" that gets the bees to eat it but they don't

know what that is, really). But the bees preferred a real pollen patty when it was tested along with a Bee Pro patty. __________________ Next year EAS is in Murray, Kentucky, August 4-8, 2008; Kent Williams is the President. Kent is very cool; he talks slowly but he thinks fast. The location is close to the Mississippi river and EAS should be lots of new interesting things. Minutes of the May 22, 2007 Meeting of BANV Mr. Tom Merz, the BANV President, opened the May meeting in the Falls Church High School cafeteria at 7:35 p.m. by requesting a motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. The minutes were approved as was the treasurers report offered by Bennie Liles. Bennie reported that the treasury held $3382 in late May 2007. Mr. Merz passed around a sign up sheet for volunteers to work the BANV booth selling hive products at the Arlington County Fair August 16 through August 19. BANV members, both Arlington County residents and those that do not reside in Arlington County, were encouraged to enter the competition for best honey or beeswax to be judged at the county fair. The competition is separate from the BANV sales booth; you can participate in one of these without necessarily participating in the other. Our summer picnic will be held at the Annandale Community Park adjacent to the Hidden Oaks Nature Center (same place as last year) on July 14. BANV will provide hamburgers, hot dogs, buns, drinks, plastic and paper products. Everyone who attends is encouraged to bring a side dish and maybe a folding chair. The Pearl Liles Memorial Fund now has $690 in it according to Pat Haskell. he said the fund would be used to assist graduate students enrolled in the entomology department at Virginia Tech. Frank Linton brought homemade pastries to the May meeting for all to enjoy. Frank also informed the approximately forty-two people attending the meeting that the new Whole Foods Market in Fair Lakes has taken out the newly installed observation hive. The landlord found the hive entrance too close to pedestrian traffic outside the store.
BANV Newsletter, September 2007 3

Possible solutions to the entrance location problem are being considered. Whole Foods says it would like to sell local honey, but details, like whether or not bar codes are required and prices, are still lacking. The guest speaker at the May meeting was Ann Harman, President of the Piedmont Beekeepers Association. Ann spoke about preparing extracted honey for a show and how it is judged. Respectfully submitted, Christopher Reed, Secretary ANNOUNCEMENTS Concerning the newsletter and its format: You may have noticed that the BANV logo is missing from the masthead, and also that there have been very few photos for the past year or so. Both these developments are a concession of defeat to Bill Gates, as my copy of MS Word seems to have great difficulty with graphics, both in native form and in conversion to a .pdf file. You may also have noticed that the last few editions of this newsletter have been rather short. The editor has been short of time to write articles, and others have contributed few. I am grateful for those. If you are unhappy with the newsletter, you can do something about it: contribute material!