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| Next
Chapter Event |
Saturday, 7/18/09
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4:30pm - Board Mtg
6:00pm - Picnic |
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| Latest
Forum Threads |
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| 2009
Calendar |
| 6/22-28 |
National Pollinator Week |
| 6/27 |
Nectar Collector Day - Nature
Center |
| 7/18 |
Board meeting (430p) & Picnic
(6p) - Sourwood Knoll Farm |
| 8/3 |
Monthly meeting (7p) - fair
prep, honey judging |
| 9/7 |
Monthly meeting (7p) - Labor
day |
| 9/11-19 |
Mtn State Fair |
| 9/26-27 |
Heritage Day - Arboretum |
| 10/5 |
Monthly meeting (7p) - cooking
with honey contest |
| 11/2 |
Monthly meeting (7p) - potluck,
elect and vote on Officers. |
| 12/7 |
Board meeting (7p) - Buncombe
County Extension (6-9p) |
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BCBC Field Day!!
The BCBC annual field day was held on Saturday at the 4H center in Swannanoa. With the stormy weather we've experienced, we were all worried about storms, but we had an absolutely beautiful day. Of the 92 beekeepers that attended, 14 took and passed the practical exam.. Events included a smoker competition, hiving a package, performing a split, and extracting a swarm from a bee tree. Many thanks to all who participated and special thanks to Edd Buchanan for setting this up for us!!!
NCBSA Proposed Bylaw Changes
The NCBSA is proposing a few changes to its bylaws, which will be voted on at the Summer meeting. Please review these prior to attending.
Basic overview of the proposals:
1. Provide for a new Officer, Membership Secretary, who would also function as an Assistant Treasurer. This will separate money collection from money disbursement. The Membership Secretary would collect money AND keep track of the membership. The Treasurer would continue to disburse money and keep the (one set of) books and accounts. The Membership Secretary will take over the role of the membership database which is currently under contract with MCI.
2. Add a term of four years to the Treasurer AND the Membership Secretary, without a limit on the number of terms these officers can serve, so that if they are to remain in office, they must be re-elected every four years. The elections of these two officers are to rotate so that both are not elected during the same year.
3. Combine the offices of Recording Secretary and Corresponding Secretary into one of (just) Secretary.
4. Ease the qualifications for ALL Executive Committee Members, to facilitate ‘new blood,’ but maintain common sense requirements for each office.
5. Ensure that the five ‘major’ Officers (President, 1st and 2nd Vice Presidents, Treasurer and Membership Secretary) come from different local chapters.
6. Change the Regions away from the six NCDA&CS designations to three broadly defined Regions that are more functional for the NCSBA: Coast, Piedmont, Mountains.
7. Remove the three ‘old’ director positions. The only current function of the directors is to form the Auditing Committee. Under the proposals, the Auditing Committee will be comprised of three Presidential-Appointed members instead, at least two of which must be from the ‘new’ Regional Directors (again, from different Regions).
8. Empower the (newly-named) Regional Directors and make them elected, instead of appointed. The new organization would have 4 rotating four-year term Directors from each of the three new Regions, for 12 total throughout the state, and require that no more than two Directors from a given Region are from the same local chapter. The 3 ‘senior’ Directors (those in their last year from each Region) would function to coordinate the activities of all 4 in that Region and also coordinate with the senior Directors of their adjoining regions to ensure that all local chapters are attended on a regular basis. The senior Directors would also ensure that 2 Directors from their Region attend each Executive Committee Meeting with full voting privileges in order to facilitate communication and representation of each local chapter.
9. Require that the President place a Director from each Region on the agenda of every Executive Committee Meeting so that local Chapter and Regional concerns will be heard.
10. Reorganize committees so that those that are critical to the function (Auditing, Nominating, Legislative, Constitution and By-Laws, Finance/Budget, Golden Achievement) of the NCSBA are deemed ‘standing’ and others can be formed as deemed necessary by the President.
11. Change the Nominating Committee from Presidential-Appointed committee to the three ‘junior’ (those serving their first year) Regional Directors.
12. Stipulate appointments for those functions that aren’t really committees, such as Buzz Editor(s), Webmaster(s), Yellow Book Editor(s), Calendar Editor, and Video Librarian. Adds job descriptions for the each of these appointments.
Recommended Books on Appalachian
Flora
Many thanks to Gary Kauffman for compiling this list. Guidebook
categories include Beginning Wildflower Manuals, Field Guides
Focused on Subset of Flora, Technical Manuals, and Woody Plants.
Each book reference is linked to a 'Where to buy' listing on
Amazon.com. Please click here
for more information
Flowering Season Calendar
Take
a look at this calendar for information on typical
flowering seasons for Western North Carolina Honey and Pollen
Sources. Compiled in 1978 by Edd Buchanan and John Mundy, then
updated in 2006 by Chris Mathis and Edd Buchanan.
July in the Bee Yard
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Plan for hives care, so you can make the state meeting in Southern Pines, July 10 - 12. |
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Late June or early July, depending on location, honey supers should be placed on hive for Sourwood flow. Around Asheville, you have to watch the Sumac bloom, because you want to keep it seperate from your Sourwood. It is blooming late June to early July. |
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Make sure you have drawn comb if honey super is placed directly over queen excluder. Bees will not draw out foundation place directly over queen excluder. |
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Make plans to extract spring honey so you will have enough supers for sourwood. This means making sure you are on the schedule if you need to rent the club extractor. |
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Purchase or have ready supers to add as needed. Drawn comb can all be put on at once, and foundation should be placed on just as it is needed to prevent them chewing it up. Put foundation on when the super below is about 75% full. |
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Make plans for treatment options for Varroa mites after the Sourwood flow ends. If you are using chemicals, know which ones and what restrictions and requirements you will have. Purchase ahead of time. |
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Splits, one effective method of controling Varroa, should be made immediately after Sourwood flow ends in late July or early August. |
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Leave enough honey on your hive to get through the winter, at least one super of honey. |
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Late July and early August do mite counts, with sugar roll or 24 hour mite drop count with screened bottom boards. This will assist in knowing if you are at the threshold to treat, should you be using chemical treatments. |
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Late July to early August, harvest Sourwood supers from hives. Make sure as much as possible is capped. If not capped, you can dry honey in the frames with a dehumidifier in the same room, but must be careful to not get it too dry. 24 to 48 hours usually does the trick and a refractometer test for moisture content is needed to make sure it is below 18.6 percent. |
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If requeening hives, plans should be made early in the month to order queens so they will be available at the end of the honey flow. |
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(6/27/09 - 7:17AM)
---- More Headlines ----
Beekeeping diary: a less than auspicious start (Daily Telegraph)
Ian Douglas begins his beekeeping year trying to calm his angry bees. (6/25/09)
A new buzz in Denver gardens (9 News Denver)
DENVER - With the passage of an ordinance allowing backyard beekeeping in the city, Denver Urban Gardens is encouraging gardeners to bring hives back to neighborhood plots. (6/25/09)
Letters for Saturday, June 27,2009 (The Record and Herald News)
Letters on Garrett's recent voters, New Jersey's killing highways, police presence at highway construction sites, Ramsey teachers, homeopathic remedies, buying votes and a lesson in sustainability. (6/27/09)
NEW YORKERS BUZZING ABOUT BEEKEEPING (New York Post)
NEW YORK -- Keeping beehives in New York City is illegal. But urban beekeepers have secretly tended to them for years in backyards and on rooftops. Now the beekeepers are making a buzz. They want the rules changed and their pollination pastime to... (6/23/09)
Hoping to Generate a Bit More Buzz (New York Times)
The Beekeepers Ball, held Monday night at the Water Taxi Beach in the South Street Seaport, drew advocates for local beekeeping along with their friends, many in costume. (6/24/09)
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