The NCBA will be hosting its annual family fun day. This is a great time to socialize with all your beekeeper friends and to learn something about beekeeping. Great food, door prizes and more. Club members and family only. You should have recieved an Evite email. Please respond so that we can get a good head count. See you all there.
Owen has done a fine job again with our monthly newsletter. Here it is for your reading pleasure. Also check out our Facebook page for more updated information.
If you ordered packages from BeeHavin they are coming in on April 14th. You will be able to pick them up at the Norfolk Aggie (same place as our meetings and bee school, from 9 am to 11 am. Following that, there will be a hive installation at Howard Crawford’s farm. Though this is aimed towards the bee school students, all members are welcome to attend. There will also be two more installations later in the day. Please contact Tony Lulek for details.
On Saturday, March 24, 2012, Norm Shaw, 96, was presented with the Mass Beekeeper of the Year for his years of dedicated service to the NCBA and our beekeepers. This is the third year in a row the a member from our club has been chosen as the Mass Beekeeper of the Year. As president it has been an honor and privilege to be part of this process. Each year I had the pleasure of submitting the nomination. This required that I get to really know the nominees. In 2009 we nominated Howard Crawford and in 2010 Tim Sullivan. We sometimes only get to know people in our clubs as beekeepers, but sitting down and interviewing these people, I got to see a side that many don’t see. To sit in Howard’s home and listen to him talk about his life is priceless. To spend time with Norm was a gift. He is a warm and friendly man with so much to share. I am attaching the write up that I did for Norm and that was read at the Mass Bee meeting on Saturday. Hopefully, Norm will be able to make it to the club meeting on Monday and present the award to the club. Nomination for Norm Shaw
Here is our latest newsletter filled with lots of great information. Click on the link to download.
Here are the presentations for next week, March 13, 2012. We have the printout that was in your book and the actual powerpoint presenation.
We have the date: March 17, 2012. At the Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary in Norfolk. Bee School 201 will be held from 11 am until 2 pm. This will be a discussion led class. Bring your questions and we will all answer them. Lot of concerns this spring about hive management, so we will cover that to include hive splitting.
For mentoring, the school will from from 2 pm to 4 pm. We will be creating a policy for all mentors for this year. All mentors are required to attend the session unless they have prior approval. We understand that everyone is busy and schedules are sometimes booked weeks if not months in advance. We will require that you meet with either Pete or Tony to discuss the mentoring policy prior to being introduced to your students. We will invite all mentors to attend on of the bee school classes. We will have a meet your mentor night. Please email Pete or Tony if you want to be a mentor, or if you can not make the class.
We will be hosting Noah Wilson-Rich for a talk on natural beekeeping. Noah is the owner of Best Bees, a Boston based bee company. He will show us what they are doing for natural beekeeping methods. Our club meetings are at the Norfolk Agricultural High School, 400 Main Street, Walpole, MA. Meeting time is 7:30 in the cafeteria.
Congratulations to our club. We now have 280 paid members. This includes 88 from bee school this year. We do still have a number of members that have not paid yet, so that number could still go up. The club has grown extensively in the past 7 years. When I started we had 18 people in bee school and about 65-70 people in the club. This is the 3rd consecutive year with school right around 90. A hand goes out the Fran Keys for managing our list of names and our google group. This is no small task. As well, all member should give themselves a pat on the back for fulfilling our mission of educating the public about bees. We have a great group it is only getting better as time goes on.
We had two presentations last night. The first on bee biology. After a slow start with some equipment malfunction, were were able to get under way. The second half of the nigh was a presenation on Diseases and Pests of the Hives. We also had a wonderful treat from Diane and Manya Lulek. Thanks for the cookies. Here are the presentations: Bee Biology Diseases and Pests