NATIONAL HONEY BOARD APPOINTS NEW BOARD MEMBERS AND ALTERNATES

Posted November 1, 2019

NATIONAL HONEY BOARD APPOINTS NEW BOARD MEMBERS AND ALTERNATES

Longmont, Colorado, September 9, 2019 – The National Honey Board (NHB) is pleased to announce its newest members and alternates, appointed by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. Secretary Purdue selects and appoints members to the NHB after reviewing all qualified nominations from certified national organizations. The following new appointees will serve three-year terms beginning …

Posted November 1, 2019

FIRST QUESTION ― IS THAT REAL HONEY?

Apimondia Montreal 2019 has now concluded. Drawing an estimated 4000 attendees, the event featured the World Beekeeping Awards, which included the competition for “Best Honey in the World.” Each honey entry consisted of three samples, one of which was sent out for “full laboratory analysis” by an accredited facility armed with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) …

Posted November 1, 2019

Letters to the Editor – November 2019

Don’t spare the yellow jackets To Alison McAfee, I enjoyed your article on yellow jackets in the September ABJ issue. As always your articles are precise and spot on. Sorry but I have to add something here that everyone always misses when it comes to our not so friendly pest the yellow jacket. You said …

Posted November 1, 2019

Using Naturally Built Queen Cells Part 2: Transporting and Attaching Them to Combs & Patching Holes in Damaged Cells

In the previous article, we learned some basic queen cell biology, which gives an indication of the developing queen bee’s environment, and her potential to support a colony with enough eggs. We learned how to judge good queen cells from poorly attended ones. From the former, we should obtain better queen bees. With the goal …

Posted November 1, 2019

U.S. Honey Crops and Markets – November 2019

Drought here, excessive rainfall there — it’s always amazing to see the differences between states, and even within states. Most of our weather news is disaster-related (go figure), and this year most of our disasters were floods. Yet some areas would have loved to have a little of that rain. Read on: Northeast New Hampshire …

Posted November 1, 2019

Honey bees can remember the good times and the bad times

This is the twenty-fourth “Notes from the Lab,” which means readers have either been enjoying or suffering through this column for two years. Perhaps a bit of both. Can you remember the columns you really liked and the ones you really didn’t? If you can, that’s due to valence encoding of your brain’s neurons, which …

Posted November 1, 2019

Fun with Figworts, the Sticky Scrophularia

I awaken on summer mornings to the sound of bumble bees. Bizz. Stop. Bizz. Stop. Bizzzzzz. Stop. The morning cuppa they seek is found in the figwort blossoms below my open window. The figworts, genus Scrophularia, belong to the family Scrophulariaceae. I love that name. I love it because it sounds like a whole sentence …

Posted November 1, 2019

The Classroom – November 2019

Q Using Discolored Honey After draining my cappings they are warmed/heated to approximately 160 degrees F. The wax is poured from the top and there is always a good bit of honey in the bottom of the container. Realizing there is always a chance of disease causing agents in the honey would it otherwise be …

Posted November 1, 2019

Patience, Propolis, and Golden Opportunity

Winter is a good time for beekeepers to learn patience. At first, we feel relieved that the bees are finally settled in and don’t need any of our time. Soon, though, we start wishing for a bee fix, and start worrying about our girls. We wonder if they might be struggling with the cold, and …

Posted November 1, 2019

Letting Honey Bees Be Honey Bees

Is Darwinian beekeeping compatible with industry? “Honey bees are the best beekeepers,” Dr. Tom Seeley softly declared to a captivated audience. The room was packed, shoulder-to-shoulder, and everyone was attentive. It was the final day of the Apimondia conference in Montreal, Canada, and Seeley held the last keynote address. “Everything they do has been shaped …

NATIONAL HONEY BOARD APPOINTS NEW BOARD MEMBERS AND ALTERNATES

Posted November 1, 2019