Fred Smith with David Hale, president of the TN Beekeepers Association
Hello fellow beekeepers,
I hope this edition of the newsletter finds you and your bees well, enjoying our lovely spring weather!
As for many of you, my Spring has been marked with typical busy, sometimes hectic tasks. When asked “what have I been up to or what did I do last weekend?” my typical response is “just worked on the bees.”
In reality though, Spring management means thousands of things, from making splits, getting hive bodies ready, installing queens, adding honey supers, moving hives for the apple pollination, and the ever-important monitoring for mites.
Sometimes, I can accomplish this multitude of tasks in a timely fashion, and sometimes life happens.
Luckily for me, spring is a glorious time with our wonderful nectar flows across the state. A good nectar flow helps the bees tolerate some of my management errors and transgressions. I’m enjoying my bees along with the work, appreciative of the nectar flow, and grateful for the bee’s tolerance. Spring is a wonderful time of year.
I recently had the opportunity to attend the Tennessee Beekeepers Association Annual Conference held this year at Middle Tennessee State University. Please don’t think that I am cheating on my beloved Maryland! Quite the contrary, it was a great opportunity to hear speakers I’ve never heard, and see how other conferences are organized and operate.
If you have an opportunity to attend another state’s conference or simply another local bee club’s meeting, I’d highly recommend it. So, take a cue from your bees and be social.
In fact, I’ve got my sights on the Eastern Apiculture Society’s (EAS) Annual Conference this year in Ithaca NY. Please join me in thanking Jim Fraser as our interim delegate to EAS, and welcoming Clyde Strang as our incoming EAS Director. Feel free to reach out to him with any questions you may have about that association. You can also find information on their website. www.easternapiculture.org
Last but certainly not least, on behalf of the entire association, I’d like to thank former MSBA presidents Kim Mehalick and Allen Hayes for the great educational courses they organized and offered this spring. The Nucs & Splits class was a sell out, and rightfully so. They and their teams did an amazing job, arranging the venue, speakers, and topics.
Sometimes sustainability requires our ability to make nucs and splits. Thank you Kim and team for your work helping to ensure the sustainability of our bees and apiaries in Maryland.
The Honey Judging course, led by Allen Hayes, was a sell out too. This especially makes me happy, because learning to judge honey arms you with the knowledge of what makes a great jar of honey. Making great jars of honey and great hive products pays dividends to us all, since we all are just ambassadors of our bees. We owe it to our bees to present their products in the most appealing manner!
All the best,