Queen Rearing for the Backyard Beekeeper
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AGENDA:
| 7:00 PM | SEASONAL BEEKEEPING Q&A (Scroll down to see how to submit questions) Seeing something odd in your hive? Something you don’t understand or can’t identify? This is the place to ask and share. |
| 7:30 PM | GUEST SPEAKER |
GUEST SPEAKER: Kim Mehalick
GUEST SPEAKER TOPIC: Queen rearing for the backyard beekeeper.
DAY: Wednesday, July 08, 2020
TIME: 7:00pm - 9:00pm (link will work starting a 15-minutes early so you can set up your computer)
WHERE: Online ONLY. Use the Zoom Link Below
ZOOM LINK CLICK HERE (expired)
WHY: Participate to learn...
- Necessary conditions to make good queens
- Choosing which queens to breed for new generations
- The right queen rearing methods for your operations, your limitations, and your goals
DESCRIPTION:
My family and I have been experimenting with making queens since we got our first package as new beekeepers. We have tried, failed and succeeded in a variety of ways to make new queens. Learn from our mistakes, and find a system that lets you also become a self sustaining operation. We will review several useful ways to make 1-10 queens, from your favorite queens for your own use. They become the basis for our Resource Nucs, which are basically queens with support staff available to be deployed whenever needed.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
Kim, her husband Mike and son James started keeping bees in 2012, after completing the BUMBA beekeeping class. Daughter Elizabeth helps out occasionally now, between college classes. They currently have four local bee yards, and are running approximately 40-50 colonies. They sell nucs, made from their overwintered Maryland Mutts. Kim started making soaps, lotions and creams using beeswax, founded "Clean Bee Soapworks", and became a certified soapmaker with Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic Guild. That certainly helped pay for some tuition costs for the kids. She is now concentrating on the bees, and makes products primarily for her family and only a few favorite craft shows a year. We made our first split our first season of beekeeping. We never had a mentor, and worked through lots of common errors, and early mistakes. We grew experienced working the bees, and kept trying new ways to raise queens. At EAS, I completed two separate full queen rearing workshops, including a two day workshop with Jennifer Berry, and another day long queen rearing workshop from Elina & Bernardo Niño. You can never learn enough about the biology of a queen bee, and how to make good new ones. We love to make splits to perpetuate our best queens, and keep our apiary as self supporting as we can. We do bring in a either a nuc from a local breeder each year, or purchase a few new queens with good genetics to diversify each season. Although I will discuss and show many ways of making new queens, we are concentrating on ones that are easiest for the backyard beekeeper without a devoted mating yard. Currently, Kim is the President of the Maryland State Beekeepers Association, and heads the mentoring program for BUMBA (PG county). She teaches at the DC Beekeepers beginning class (fall/winter and previously products of the hive). FUN FACT: I am a NASA engineer, so if you tell me I "over engineered" something I just laugh....
WHAT is a WEBINAR and HOW DO I WATCH IT???
This webinar presents MCBA's meeting (7pm) directly on your computer. To 'attend' requires just three clicks:
- 10 minutes before the meeting starts, click the ZOOM LINK listed above
- When your computer asks, click "open zoom.us.app"
- When your computer asks, click "join with computer audio"
You can join using a computer, phone or tablet, but to use a phone or tablet you must first download and install the free Zoom MEETING app from the app store, or by clicking HERE.
Connecting to ZOOM before the meeting starts will give you time to work through potential glitches.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE and ASK QUESTIONS:
To ASK General Beekeeping questions for the 7:00 PM to 7:30 Q&A you have two options: a) submit them in advance by typing them in the 'Comments" section at the bottom of this page, or TYPE them into the Q&A chat dialog during our Q&A session.
To ASK the Guest Speaker QUESTIONS during the meeting, TYPE them into the Q&A chat dialog during her talk. A club volunteer will monitor questions, then read them aloud so everyone can hear. Please don't 'unmute' your microphone during the meeting.