Capital Area Beekeepers Association NEWSLETTER. December 2015 CABA OFFICERS, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AND APPOINTMENTS FOR 2015

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1 Capital Area Beekeepers Association NEWSLETTER December 2015 CABA OFFICERS, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AND APPOINTMENTS FOR 2015 President: Chris Frink Board Member: Jimmy Dunkley V. President: Billy Worsham Board Member: David Ferguson Secretary: Suzanne Lamotte Board Member: Bobby Frierson Treasurer: Jacquie Hoover Board Member/Apiarist Orie Henson Librarian: Louis Clements Board Member: Jack Lithgoe Newsletter Co-Editor: Ernie Miller Board Member: Gary McKenzie Newsletter Co-Editor: Stuart Herrmann CABA MOTHLY MEETING CALENDER The Capital Area Beekeepers Association meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:00 P.M. at the Louisiana Resource Center for Educators (LRCE), 5550 Florida Boulevard, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This month s meeting will be held on December 1, Jimmy Dunkley will be giving a presentation entitled Beginning with Bees. Also, elections for officers and board members for 2016 will be held. Welcome new beekeepers: Adam and Casey Meyer ATTENTION ALL NEW BEEKEEPERS: BEGINNER BEEKEEPING TALKS WILL BE HELD AT OUR JANUARY, MARCH, & APRIL MONTHLY MEETINGS

2 2015 CABA ANNUAL HONEY CONTEST Jimmy Dunkley, CABA Board Member, December 2015 Our annual CABA Honey Contest was held at our Tuesday, November 3 rd regular monthly meeting. Entries were submitted by a handful of member families in three categories. One additional category was added by the judges. Each sample was judged on a total point value of 100. The following winners and the total point values they were awarded are reported below. Category/Class Place Member Beekeeper Total Points Resident Parish Light Amber: 1 st Place Mary Brasseaux 98 East Baton Rouge 2 nd Place Don Neisler 90 East Baton Rouge 3 rd Place None Amber: 1 st Place Don Neisler 98 East Baton Rouge 2 nd Place Doug Doremus 97 East Baton Rouge 3 rd Place Stuart Herrmann (tie) 94 East Baton Rouge Suzanne Lamotte (tie) 94 West Baton Rouge Fred Roberts (tie) 94 East Baton Rouge Dark: 1 st Place Mary Brasseaux 98 East Baton Rouge 2 nd Place Allen Howland 94 East Baton Rouge 3 rd Place Tommy French (tie) 93 East Baton Rouge Ernie Miller (tie) 93 East Baton Rouge Extra Dark: (1 Entry) 1 st Place Doug Doremus 98 East Baton Rouge Member participation was at an all time low with only 14 participants and 21 total samples. Thanks go out to all who participated and we encourage more participation in The CABA membership would also like to thank Dr. Robert Danka, Oversight Judge, and Head Judges, Doug Doremus, and Brenda Brown for their assistance with the 2015 honey contest CABA HONEY CONTEST WINNERS

3 CABA MEMBER SPRING BEE ORDERS Jimmy Dunkley, CABA Board Member, December 2015 CABA members interested in participating in the annual queen and/or package bee order in 2016 should start submitting their orders January 1 st. Avoyelles Honey Company, E. J. Bordelon (owner), is our queen and package bee supplier. The price for a 3 lb. package of bees with queen will be $75.00 if at least 100 packages are purchased. Add an additional $3.50 if you want the queen marked and wings clipped. I do not have a price for individual queens at this time. No individual member package order larger than 10 will be accepted due to a limited number available to us. Package orders in excess of 10 per individual are considered commercial and should be arranged independently of the club order. However, if we do not meet our allotted package order, we will free additional packages to those who want them. Please contact our treasurer, Jacquie Hoover, by calling or by at jhooverea@att.net between January 1 st and March 1st to place an order. Send payment by check made out to the CABA for your order. You must pay at the time you place your order in 2016 if you want to be included in the CABA order. You can pay Jacquie at the January or February meeting or by mailing your payment to: Jacquie Hoover, Weinberger Road, Ponchatoula, LA Do not wait until March 1 st to contact Jacquie to place your order and/or send your payment. Orders postmarked after March 1 st will not be accepted. Orders should be available for pick-up by the first week of April. Members will be notified of the delivery date and must arrange to have their order picked up on that date, regardless of whether they will be in town. Members will be sent an notification of the delivery date but please make sure we also have a telephone number at which you can be reached in case we only receive a two day notice of delivery. CABA has no control over the delivery date. 54th LOUISIANA BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION CONVENTION The Louisiana Beekeepers Association (LBA) will hold their 54th Annual State Convention on Friday, December 4th and Saturday, December 5 th, 2015 at the Hilton Garden Inn; 400 Mane Street, West Monroe, Louisiana A block of rooms was held for LBA guests at a rate of $ for a standard-double room (two queen beds) per night until November 13 th but may still be available. Please make your reservations by calling the hotel at Remember to mention the Louisiana Beekeepers Association to get the special rate. Please join us for the latest research information from the USDA/ARS Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics & Physiology Laboratory. Also, some of our guest speakers are Chris Hiatt, Executive Board Member of the American Honey Producers, Randy Oliver, Beekeeping through the Eyes of a Biologist, Dr. David Tarpy, Professor of Entomology and Extension Apiculturist at North

4 Carolina State University. There will be something for everyone from the small scale beekeeper to the lifetime beekeeper as well as the commercial beekeeper, so please join us in West Monroe. You may also register online at the LBA website: labeekeepers.org by using your credit card or PayPal or you may mail in the registration form if after November 13 th. The registration form is located on the labeekeepers.org website. Make your check payable to the Louisiana Beekeepers Association to: David Ferguson, P.O. Box 716, Brusly, LA There is a late registration fee of $30.00 per person and $40.00 per family for those that register after the November 13 th preregistration cut-off date or at the convention. CRISIS SHIFT? BEEKEEPER APOCALYPSE...? Bee News & Views, Nov./Dec. 2015* Beekeeping tends to be more on the commercial side. Scientists are now in agreement that we are not facing a bee apocalypse as many in the media, environmental activists and journalists have been predicting. Bee populations aren t declining; they re rising. According to statistics kept by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, honeybee populations in the United States, Canada and Europe have been stable or growing for the two decades. But the latest statistics have not stemmed the tide of dire warnings. The focus has shifted from the pollinators themselves to beekeepers. Tim Tucker, president of the American Beekeeping Federation recently said: It s not the bees that are in jeopardy.. I believe we ll always have bees. [But] unless things change, what s in jeopardy is the commercial beekeeping industry. University of Maryland bee researcher Dennis van Englesdorp echoed the sentiment: We re not worried about the bees going extinct. We re worried about the beekeepers going extinct. Beekeeping is Challenging Beekeepers are indeed working nearly twice as hard as ever, as Tucker has said. Beekeepers report having to split their hives more often to make up for losses, entailing more work than in previous decades. And for commercial beekeepers maintaining thousands of bee hives, all of this additional work means more employees, more salaries, and more expenses. The major driver of these challenges is the near-global spread of parasites like the Varroa mite and the dozens of other diseases that beset commercial honey bees, which require a great deal more work and expense for both commercial and hobbyist beekeepers. Varroa mite counts must be carefully monitored, and mite control preparations applied at precisely the right times. Otherwise, mite infestations can get ahead of beekeepers, propagate and devastate the hives.

5 But the hard work and increased challenges of beekeeping today don t necessarily translate into economic calamity especially for the more sophisticated beekeepers who have modernized their operations and kept abreast of changing conditions. As beekeeper and independent researcher Randy Oliver, who runs the well regarded Scientific Beekeeping blog, points out, In beekeeping today, many progressive beekeepers are finding beekeeping to be more profitable than ever. The U.S. Department of Agriculture s economic statistics bear this out. Demand for honey has almost doubled over the past quarter century to million pounds by Per capita honey consumption in the U.S. is up nearly 50 percent over the same period. When demand is high, prices go up. The retail price of honey has risen more than 50 percent in the last decade, (about the same as beeswax), with total revenue from honey production reaching $2.835 billion in Commercial beekeepers have also prospered from a parallel boom in the market for almonds, which is critically dependent on bees for pollination. In fact, as much as 75 percent of all U.S. commercial beehives are committed to almond growing, the bees trucked into California in the first quarter of each year to pollinate the 870,000 acres of almond groves (which have more than doubled in size since the mid-1980s) Almond Forecast With rising pollination services demand, hive rental fees for almond pollination have risen to record levels, with prices up a staggering 428% (or about $150 extra per colony) since the 1990s. Together with other pollinated crops, including sunflowers, canola, grapes, apples, cherries, watermelons, and blueberries, total revenue for pollination services added up to $655.6 million in 2012, the most recently available data. Stress Problems While the cross-continent pollination treks made by beekeepers are highly profitable, the huge stresses imposed on the bees themselves helps explain the less than optimum health of many commercial bee colonies. One result is that despite the fact that we now have more bee colonies than we have had in 20 years, the volume of U.S. honey production and the per-colony honey yield as opposed to the price per pound of honey has been on a general decline. United States honey production in 2013 is about 35 percent lower than in While a number of factors contribute to this trend, USDA notes, With proportionally more colonies being sent to pollinate almond orchards as opposed to crops that are more valuable for honey production a lower average volume of useable honey per colony can be expected. The downward trend in U.S. honey production means that U.S. beekeepers now satisfy less than 1/3 of total U.S. honey demand. The difference is made up from imports from other nations chiefly Argentina, Vietnam, India, Brazil, Canada, Uruguay, Mexico, Ukraine, Turkey and Taiwan.

6 Despite all this foreign competition, however, high U.S. demand has continued to exert upward pressure on U.S. honey prices, which have more than doubled to $2.12 per pound since the Colony Collapse Disorder crisis of All this is economics, not catastrophe. Consumers may not like the higher prices for honey, but higher prices are certainly sweet news for beekeepers. As beekeeper and researcher Randy Oliver has commented, the market for honey is offering opportunity for those not involved in pollination. And the market for bee sales is ravenous. *Note: Crisis shift? Bees may not be facing apocalypse but what about beekeepers? By Jon Entine was taken from Bee News & Views, The Mississippi Beekeepers Association Newsletter, November/December, IT TAKES MORE THAN ROYAL JELLY TO MAKE A QUEEN Nurse bees feed larvae destined to be workers not only royal jelly, which queen-destined larvae are fed, but also beebread, or processed pollen (seen here). Beebread contains p-coumaric acid, which alters gene expression and contributes to the honey bees developmental fate. developmental fate. Champaign, Illinois: A closer look at how honey bee colonies determine which larvae will serve as workers and which will become queens reveals that a plant chemical, p-coumaric acid, plays a key role in the bees The study, reported in the journal Science Advances, shows that broad developmental changes occur when honey bee larvae those destined to be workers are switched from eating royal jelly (a glandular secretion) to a diet of jelly that includes honey and beebread (a type of processed pollen). Beebread and honey contain p-coumaric acid, but royal jelly does not. Queens feed exclusively on royal jelly. Worker bees known as nurses feed the larvae according to the needs of the hive. Experiments revealed that ingesting p-coumaric acid pushes the honey bee larvae down a different developmental pathway from those fed only royal jelly. Some genes, about a third of the honey bee genome, are upregulated and another third are downregulated, changing the landscape of proteins available to help fight disease or develop the bees reproductive parts. Consuming the phytochemical p-coumaric acid, which is ubiquitous in beebread and honey, alters the expression of a whole suite of genes involved in caste determination, said University of Illinois entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum, who conducted the study with research scientist Wenfu Mao and cell and developmental biology professor Mary Schuler. For years, people have wondered what components in royal jelly lead to queen development, but what might be more important is what isn t in royal jelly plant chemicals that can interfere with development.

7 While previous molecular studies have provided simple snapshots of the gene transcript variations that are associated with the exposure of insects to natural and synthetic chemicals, the genomics approaches used in this study offer a significantly more complex perspective on the biochemical and physiological processes occurring in plant-insect interactions, Schuler said. *Note: Article posted in Catch the Buzz, Bee Culture Magazine s Electronic Newsletter, August 29, CLUB VIDEO AND DVD RETURN Notice CABA has an informative library of videos and DVDs on beekeeping topics for members use. Please get in touch with Louis Clement at our next meeting to return or borrow material. Contact Louis Clement at The CABA electronic newsletter is available to members monthly via our club website. Please contact Ernie Miller at riverdale840@yahoo.com to provide articles to be published in our monthly newsletter. An online version of past monthly newsletters is available in the Newsletter Archive of our website: wwwcabainfo.org. Photo by S.R. Herrmann Lagniappe

8 Bees, Beekeeping Equipment and/or Products for Sale Beekeeping equipment supplies for sale, call Ed s Shenandoah Hardware, 5715 Jones Creek Rd., B.R Beekeeping equipment/supplies for sale, call Gary Price or Raw honey, raw beeswax, and clean pollen for sale, call Doug Doremus Honey for sale in various size containers, call Bobby Frierson at Mated honey bee queens, five frame nucs, honey for sale in 5 gallon containers, call David Ferguson Nucs $130.00, 5 gal buckets of honey by the lbs, established boxes of bees with honey, wax by the lb, call Jesse Erwin Wooden ware, new deep hive boxes (9-5/8 ) $50.00, shallow hive boxes (5-11/16 ) $40.00, unassembled, w/o nails. Each box includes 10 frames w/nails (unassembled) and 10 pure beeswax foundations, call Yvonne Bey JOIN THE CAPITAL AREA BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION TODAY! CAPITAL AREA BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FOR 2015 Beekeeper s Name No. Colonies Spouse s Name No. Yards Address Telephone City State Zip Address Annual membership dues are still only $ Please send your check payable to the Capital Area Beekeepers Association, c/o Jacquie Hoover, Weinberger Road, Ponchatoula, LA REGISTER ALL HONEY BEE COLONIES WITH THE LA. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE & FORESTRY