May06

This will be an old-fashioned picnic with Hamburgers -Hot Dogs -Brats -Potato Salad Beverages and all the trimmings. Provisions have been made for all kinds of weather. Bring your family and enjoy a day of friendship among fellow beekeepers. Starting time is noon -lunch will be at 1:00. Lunch is $10.50 per person, no need to bring anything all is furnished. Please call and let us know your plan so we have an idea of a number attending. 989-865-9377

Roger Hoopingarner will talk on how to prepare your honey for the Honey Show at the Annual Fall Meeting.

James Higgins , Past President of the Apiatherapy Society, will also be speaking.

Make Your reservations early for MBA pricing be sure to mention you are with the MBA.

Kirk Webster (Vermont) -Queen Rearing and Over wintering in Nucs Rob Green (Indiana) -Backyard Beekeeping

Blackmore Rowe -Insurance through MBA as a group Accounting practices-getting your book keeping in order easily

The Valley Plaza Resort is a family friendly resort with many things for the whole family to do.

Attractions include 3 indoor pools -32 lane bowling alley -indoor putt-putt golf -arcade -full service exercise facility -twin movie theaters and much more. The facility is easy to reach from anywhere in the state. A special package is being offered including the MBA Banquet in the price for your room. More details to follow, or call Ed Wracan for information @ 810-621-3829.

Here are a few things that we need for you to do before the next board meeting for Terry and me. The date of the meeting is May 20, 2006.

1. Need to get nominations for Beekeeper of the Year Award to your District Representative-due date is OS/20/06

2. Need letters sent to the Editor, Mary Klein by OS/20/06, for the June Newsletter. Articles submitted by the end of each month will be used in the next newsletter. You can write articles, send pictures, submit stories, or what is going on in your bee yards. You can also submit bee equipment for sale. Submit to Mary Klein ,11785 Wahl, St. Charles, MI-48655. e-mail tmk-sons@perceptionet.com

3. We have offices opening this year for election. If you would like to run, please call Terry Klein or Dave Anthony. (numbers at end of page). the offices to be filled are Member-at-Large, District 2-4-6 Representatives, Secretary and Treasurer.

5. If you would like to become a mentor for beekeeping, or answer questions for people starting bee-keeping,-please send-me- your phone number and counties to be assembled in a master Phone book for mentor beekeeping.

6. There are a lot of changes happening in the MEA. We need names of people who want to work for MBA on committees , meetings, and upcoming projects or volunteer work for each year. If you would like to help please call Terry or Dave.

7. The by-laws are in the process of being updated if you would like to help please contact Ed. Wracan @ 810-621-3829 or Roger Hoopingarner @ 517-699-2428.

Terry and I would like to say thank you for all your help . It is very much appreciated. If you have any new ideas please talk to us.

District 7 Rep. Barbara Pepp reports that she attended a meeting in Wisconsin with Dr. Marla Spivak and she was not satisfied with the way SucrocideTM was working.

Saginaw Valley Beekeepers talked about serious bee losses this winter at their April Meeting.

From Florida comes word of problems with a pest in the orange groves and the spraying may be causing problems with Michigan Beekeepers in that state.

This note is to inform you that Michigan has completed the next step in registering ApiLife Var under the Section 18 provisions of FIFRA. The EP A has granted Michigan a Section 18 exemption for 2006. The next step in the process is for Brushy Mountain Bee to provide MDA with a "Michigan" label for the product. Dr. Hughes is working directly with Brushy Mountain Bee to accelerate this process.

The Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) will publish a copy of the approved label for Michigan· on the MDA Web Site when the final details to the registration process are complete. Check out the MDA Website at www.michigan.gov/mda

Click on the Licensing, Certification & Registration box on the left column Click on Pesticides on the left column.

I expect to see this label posted in the very near future. Brushy Mountain Bee has been notified of the approval for Michigan, and they are in the process of completing the final paperwork. Beekeepers should be contacting Brushy Mountain Bee in the need future if they are planning to use ApiLife Var this spring. Note that the prohibition for extracting honey from comb or brood comb that has been exposed to ApiLife Var is still a concern. I expect most treatments will occur following honey removal in late August.

Mike Hansen, State Apiarist. 4032 M-139, Building 116 St. Joseph, MI 49085 269-428-2575 Hansenmg@michigan.gov

The MDA has approved a label for ApiLife Var in Michigan under Section 18 provisions in FIFRA. Beekeepers using ApiLife Var NEED to have a copy of this label in their posession at the time of use. The Section 18 for ApiLife Var was granted on April 6th and amended on April 11th.

Created by DPE, Copyright IRIS 2005

Faber's Greenhouse 7010 Graham Road St. Charles, MI 48655 (989) 865-9351

Created by DPE, Copyright IRIS 2005

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Liatris

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· Instant return on investment - All plants wintered and will flower this year.

· We can have orders ready with short notice for pick up or we can arrange for delivery by our truck.

For you old-timers, I am not going to talk about American foulbrood disease, though it certainly has an odor. What I want to discuss are the other odors that are found within the hive, though mostly not detected by our sense of smell.

Bees have a very finely tuned sense of smell that resides mostly on their antennae. If you look at a beefs antenna under a microscope, you will see, among other structures, many fine little pits or craters. These sensilla vary

in detail, as some may be general sensors and others very specific. Physiologists have tested some of these structures by connecting them up to sensitive recording devices and then testing the test bee with various odors.

In 1959, a group of researchers in England was the first to identify what was later to be called pheromones. A pheromone is an externally secreted chemical that elicits a behavioral response from another member of the same species. The first identified pheromone was the queen pheromone of honey bees. The response was the "court" behavior, so often seen by beekeepers, by worker bees surrounding a queen. The queen pheromone was also determined to be the sex attractant that lures drones to mate in the mating areas known as drone congregation areas.

Since the queen pheromone is not considered very volatile by sex attractant standards, it supports the idea that the drone has a very sensitive set of organs on the antennae. At least some of them probably very finely tuned to the queen pheromone. Most of the pheromones that have been identified in insects are in fact sex pheromones, and indeed some of the female insects can attract a male of the species a long distance, especially considering the volume of air that is involved.

Recently a team of scientists lead by Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman, who gained her Ph.D. from MSU, has identified another queen pheromone. This pheromone waxes and wanes depending upon egg laying status. Thus, a virgin and a non-laying queen are different from a normal laying queen. Upon further study, it may be found that this is the pheromone that actually triggers supercedure, but it may also be the decline in both pheromones.

When it comes to other pheromones within the colony, scientists have not yet chemically defined any. However, evidence points to many others. For example, if you remove all the drones from a colony the queen and workers will raise more drones. Conversely, if you add drones to a colony they will stop rearing new drones. Such feedback mechanisms seem to be active with almost all the structure within the hive, and current speculation is that

the mechanism is a pheromone that is either present or absent from the colony. If the colony is without brood in the spring then less pollen is collected by the bees. This fact is why a queen less package is not very good for pollination of a crop. A technique that has been used because the fruit grower did not want to pay for the queen (the queen does not do any pollinating, you know!). Of course, the grower gets exactly what he paid for, a poor-pollinating hive.

Scientists have developed a new array of techniques for identifying very small amounts of a pheromone that is being secreted by a queen, drone, worker, or larva. Once identified these chemicals may be used for other purposes such as control of mites. For example, varroa mites are attracted to drone larvae much more than worker larvae. Since the mites are blind, it makes sense thattl1ey are being at-H tracted to the drone cells by some chemical that is being emitted. If this chemical is identified, I see no good reason that it might not be used in a trapping device.

When I think of all the pheromone signals that must be moving around a colony of bees I wonder how they manage to sort them all out. Obviously, they do! The whole order of the hive is dictated by very small amounts of these chemicals. In a dark hive, odors would be the only way the system would work very well.

Earlier, I said that most of these odors we cannot detect. Some we can. When a colony swarms, or has a virgin queen out on a mating flight, you can smell the aggregation pheromone. The pheromone that keeps, or brings, the bees together, but also helps the virgin queen to locate her hive when she returns from a mating flight. Beekeepers also can smell the alarm pheromone. Get bees into a good stinging session and you will soon learn to recognize its odor.

The first flowers to open for most beekeepers are the soft maples, which often open in March, but sometimes the year is late enough that this is the first pollen of the month. Bees will collect pollen from almost all of the spring wildflowers, and sometimes the flowers are abundant enough to yield quite a bit of pollen. Garden flowers such as crocus are also visited by bees for the pollen that they have.

Later in the month, yellow rocket will bloom and this provides a lot of pollen as well as nectar. Yellow rocket will bloom just about the time that fruit trees begin to bloom. It is often a significant competitor for pollination in some orchards. If the season is late, most fruit bloom will occur in May, with the possible exception of cherries. They are usually the first fruit trees to bloom followed by pear, peaches and apricots, and then apples.

Dandelion has often been spoken of as good pollen. It is not as far as protein content, but in the fact that it is out and abundant early in the season, does make it a "good" pollen. I have seen strong colonies make a shallow super of honey from dandelion, so its major benefit may be in its nectar supply.

April is an important month for bees and for beekeepers. By this time of year we normally will get regular flight days even though they may be just a couple of hours during the day. With those flights, bees will be bringing in the first pollens and possibly some nectar from flowers such as dandelion.

If you had put a supplement pollen patty on your hives you can remove it now, as once the pollen comes in from the flowers the bees abandon the supplement patties.

With the vastly expanded amount of brood at this time, the colony will go through a lot of honey very quickly. The colony needs about 15 pounds in reserve or they will stop brood rearing. The 15 pounds is about the equivalent of three deep frames of honey. Thus, make sure the bees have enough food for even a shut down of a day or two is very costly in bees and ultimately the amount of honey they will produce during the season.

Package bees are usually installed in April. The earlier the packages are installed the better, at least up to a point. It takes about eight weeks for a package of bees to get to peak population. So decide when the honey flow starts in your area and move back the eight weeks. That is the time to install the packages of bees. Make sure the package has lots of syrup, or honey. Extra honey is generally better as it can keep the colony from extreme temperature changes that often happen overnight during the month.

April is usually the first time to rotate the brood chambers. The bees have a tendency to work upwards and by taking the empty chamber below and moving it to the top gives the colony more expansion room even though you have not added any more space.

Be on the lookout for diseases. Often a colony dies over the winter if disease has taken the toll of many of its bees. Then on the first flight days of the year, your strong colonies will forage long distances to rob out these dead colonies. The result they bring back the AFB spores with them and infest your best colonies. Tylan® is now registered for treatment.

There are probably as many methods of installing packages into hives as there are beekeepers. However, I want to give you a few tips that might make the difference in how well the resulting colony survives and grows.

Early packages are best, yet the early season can be variable with some days with cold, rain or even snow. suspect the idea installing temperature would be between 50-55 degrees F.-just below the cluster temperature. Then

when you shake them into the hive they immediately cluster and drifting to a nearby colony is not a problem. What do you do if the temperature is freezing? The first decision is will it be much better tomorrow, or is this a long cold spell? If the weather is not going to get better soon, then put your package into a warm place and feed them some syrup. I usually spray it onto them, however be sure they have cleaned themselves well before you take them out to the apiary. If you can, put some warm honey into the hive. The warm honey will give them a good place to cluster. If you do not have any honey frames that you can warm up, then use warm syrup in pails that you put on the top of the frames surrounded by an empty hive box.

Then shake the package into the bottom of the hive and replace the frames quickly. I then spray the queen with syrup and drop her into the center of the bees. Why do I do that rather than letting the bees release her from the mailing cage? The reason is that the sooner she can start laying eggs the better, and by using the spray and direct-release method the queen should be laying eggs in 24 hours. If you rely on the bees to release her from a mailing cage she may not be laying for 3-4 days and this is too much time. Think about the colony three weeks after you

install it. How many bees are you going to have then? Not the 12-15,000 that you started with, but maybe half that number. There will be no new adult bees entering the work force for 21 days after the queen starts laying eggs. Every day that it is delayed creates more problems at the end of the three weeks because the adult bees keep dying and their numbers get very low. If the overnight temperature happens to get cold the colony ends up chilling some brood because the colony does not have enough bees to keep all of the brood area warm.

It may be worth while doing a powdered-sugar varroa test on a couple hundred bees from the package. That way you will know just where the colony is starting from as far as mite population load.

The Michigan Beekeepers' Association summer meeting will be Saturday June 17, 2006, in Suttons Bay (near Traverse City). Speakers, tours, and luncheon are planned. More info will follow.

The Heartland Apicultural Society (HAS) will meet July 6-8 at Vincennes University in Vincennes, Indiana. The conference promises to be a good one and one that is well organized. For more information go to their website:

Eastern Apiculture Society (EAS) will meet from July 31 to August 4 at Young Harris College in Young Harris, Georgia. This is in the mountains of northern Georgia. More information is available at their website: www.easternapiculture.org.