Keeping the educational portion of a local chapter meeting fresh and engaging can be a challenge. Balancing topics interesting to both new and experienced beekeepers is one reason to construct an agenda for the entire year so that you can see if you have established that balance. It also helps your membership plan to participate.
We recommend that you plan ahead. As an example, have a presentation about swarm collection one or two months before swarm season. That would allow interested members to gather resources to participate in what they have just learned at your meeting.
Encourage seasoned beekeepers to participate by asking them to prepare lectures, comments, and perhaps bring samples of equipment for comparison. Encourage your newer beekeepers to participate by asking them to help the presenter(s) if feasible.
ASSISTING PRESENTERS: A minimum of two weeks prior to each monthly presentation, your program director should confirm that the presenter(s) are going to attend and inquire of them what they may need. Don’t assume they will bring their own laptop, projector, or other equipment. Ask them how much time they will need for set-up and reaffirm the agreed length of time for their presentation. Does the meeting area need to be arranged in any special order? Give the presenter a contact phone number so that if they are lost, or running late, they have someone to contact. Good communication is essential.
Over the past year the MBP committee has been collecting suggestions from the membership. Following is a suggested list of topics for you to combine, shorten, or expand to what works for you and your membership. Most of these can be presented in a variety of formats;
- open forum discussion or show-and-tell
- power point (or other) presentation by an experienced local member or visiting specialist
- some can be done in the form of a workshop, or field-day
- check the video/audio library for available materials
Please email the MBP committee with any additional suggestions. If your chapter is doing something terrific that works for you, let us know so that we might share it throughout the membership.
UPDATES
Present monthly updates concerning NCSBA programs, news from NCSU, news from the Apiary Inspection Service, NCDA&CS programs and news of other chapters’ activities (past and pending). By making the membership aware of the activities of the state, you will promote a sense of belonging and inclusion; thus encouraging involvement.
COMMITTEE PRESENTATIONS
You might arrange for a member of one of the NCSBA committees to come and make a presentation to your club explaining what the program is and how it might be beneficial to the beekeeper.
TOPICS LIST
HIVE PRODUCTS
Honey
- Types marketed
- Heating honey – How, Why or why not
- Honey Labeling Laws – regulations and marketing
- How to make Creamed (whipped) honey
- How to make ‘cut comb’ honey
- How to make ‘chunk’ honey
- How to make honey-straws
- Extraction – from the hives techniques
- Extraction – in the honey house
- Bottling : how to reduce foam, crystals, lint, filtering, cleaning up afterwards
- Safe Storage of honey – temperature considerations and effects
Pollen
- How bees collect it, distribute it, use it
- How do beekeepers collect it, clean it, store it
- Uses such as pollen patties & dietary supplements; marketing and sales
Propolis
- How do bees collect resins, mix resins with wax, How bees use it
- How do beekeepers collect it, clean it, store it, market it
- Uses: Making varnish, homeopathic antiseptics
Wax
- Gathering, cleaning, filtering and storage for future use
- Making Candles
- Making Furniture Polish
- Making Lotions
- Making Balms
- Making Waterproofing
- Making Blocks
Encaustic Painting
Marketing
Contests & Judging
Mead
- How to make mead (carbonated vs not carbonated)
- Preparing mead for judging & contests
Photographing Bees
- How-To
- Products you can make
- Copyright Laws
Commercial Pollination
- How to move hives
- Understanding crops to be pollinated
- Pollination contracts between grower and beekeeper
- How the big commercial pollinators do this
Cooking With Honey
- Moisture considerations
- Recipes that work and are favorites
- FAQs
Venom/Apitherapy
Honey Tasting Expert: compare to wine tasting – courses now available in the U.S.
BEEKEEPER ACTIVITES & EQUIPMENT
Record Keeping
- Present options from handwritten notebooks up to paid-for computer programs
Safety and First-Aid in the Apiary
- Basic procedures, up to and including Epi-Pen Training and CPR
Equipment Comparisons: pros and cons
- 10 and 8 frame Langstroth running with 1 less frame
- Langstroth, Top Bar, Horizontal, Flow-hive, other
- Veils and Suits and Gloves
- Hive Tools
- Solar Melters, Crock Pot and other wax melting
- Frame Types
- Foundation Types
- Screened vs Solid inner covers and bottom boards
- Extractors
Equipment Construction
- How to make a Polariscope
- How to make an Observation Hive
- How to make a Solar Melter
- How to make a sugar-shake or alcohol wash ‘kit’
- How to assemble frames & place foundation
- How to construct hive bodies
- NUCs how to assemble; when, why & how to use them
- Paints, Stains, Sealers or Not
Swarms
- Demaree Method
- Splits
- Adding space
- Swarm Capture
- Equipment needs (bee vacs, moving screens, foundation supports, bait hives)
Bee Removal from Structures
- Legal concerns
- Physical abilities and equipment needs
Managing Honey Production
- 70% rule
- Checker-boarding
- Supering – adding space, when and how
- Determining when the moisture content allows extraction
- How to remove honey frames from the apiary – discuss the various techniques (fumigants, brush, use of smoke, bee escapes etc.)
- How to remove honey from frames in the honey house – discuss equipment needs and varieties (de-capping knives, scrapers, de-capping tanks, pail heaters, refractometer, filters, etc.)
- How to clean up, or store extracted frames
Spring Management
- Stimulating colonies
- Watch food resources – avoid starvation
- Young queens / Re-queening?
- Making Splits
- Rearranging boxes
- Installing a new queen
- Installation of a package of bees
- How to mark a queen (why or why not do this)
Summer Management
- Monitoring for Varroa
- Monitoring for SHB
- Monitoring for Wax MothsMonitoring for weak colonies/combining colonies
- Water resources
Fall Management & Winter Prep
- Reducing equipment
- Equipment and wax storage
- Early fall varroa management
- Understanding winter ‘fat’ bees and vitellogenin
- Mouse infestation prevention
- Temperature and the dynamics of the winter-cluster
Winter Management
- Wind blocks
- Ventilation
- Checking food stores
- Temperature
Feeding Bees
- Sugar Syrup: ratios; wet vs. dry
- Pollen & Substitutes
- Additives
- Techniques, feeder types
- Making Splits
- Combining Colonies
Queen Rearing
- Different Methods: Doolittle, Miller, etc.
- Raising your own
- Understanding the math
- Understanding mating
- Genetics
- Understanding artificial insemination (pros and cons)
Diseases and Other Maladies
Symptoms, causes, prevention, remedies, and effects
- Nosema
- American Foulbrood
- European Foulbrood
- Deformed Wing Virus
- Chronic Bee Paralysis
- Black hairless syndrome
- Sacbrood
- Chalkbrood
- Starvation
- Chilled
Pests
- Recognizing the symptoms &/or pest
- Life cycle (developmental and reproductive needs of the pest)
- What the causes are
- What the effects are
- What a beekeeper can do to reduce the incidences and/or relieve the effects of the pests
SHB Small Hive Beetles
- Understand their life cycle, reproduction and development needs
- Equipment used to control (traps, hive placement etc.)
- Recognize them and know the damage they can cause
GWM Greater Wax Moth
- Understand their life cycle, reproduction and development needs
- Equipment used to control (traps)
- Recognize them and their effects on your colonies
Tracheal Mites
- Recognize the symptoms
- Know what effect they can have
- What the beekeeper can do to relieve the situation
Varroa Mites
- Understanding the life cycle is crucial to varroa control
- Management (treatment) products and techniques, their effects on you, your bees and hive products
- Drone brood removal
- Sugar dusting / spraying
- Broodless period (its effect on management techniques)
- Temperature restrictions of treatments
- Honey super restrictions of treatments
New Pests on the Horizon
- Zombie Flies
- Tropilaelaps Clareae
- Other mites
Other Pests
- Bears
- Opossums
- Raccoons
- Mice
- Braula Flies
- Ants
- Yellow Jackets
IPM: Integrated Pest Management
- What the definition is, and what the use of IPM can do for you
- Counting varroa to understand the level of infestation and threshold
- Sugar shake/alcohol wash/sticky-board
Pesticides
- How to read a pesticide label (understanding the specific effect a product may or may not have on honey bees; application requirements; the label is the law)
- How to prepare your hives when notified of a pending (and legal) pesticide application that might affect your colonies
- What to do if you suspect your bees have been poisoned by a pesticide application near you (who to call, what to do and not do)
OTHER TOPICS
Other Stinging Insects
- Other Bees: blue-orchard aka mason”bees, bumble bees, sweat bees
- Other Hymenoptera: paper wasp, mud-dauber, golden-digger, black-faced ‘hornet’, yellow jackets, cicada killers, flightless wasp aka velvet ant, European hornet
- Their strengths and weaknesses as pollinators
- How they differ from bees
Races of Bees
- Africanized Honey Bees (AHB)
- How they differ from European HB (development and characteristics)
- How they take over a geographic area
- Measures and practices in place in NC to reduce infiltration of AHB
- Hygienic Bees
- How is testing for hygienic behavior done
- Buckfast
- Russian
Plants
- Parts of a flower (emphasis on reproduction)
- Plants that are toxic to honey bees
- Plants that honeybees dislike or cannot forage well upon
- Plants that make good honey in YOUR area
- Plants that offer good pollen in YOUR area