Sol's Space
Our new meeting facility is now Fairview Community School located at Second Street and Howard Avenue. Meeting time remains the same but we have the advantage of staying later if needed. This is going to be an excellent facility, as you will see.
Reports on the honey crop are very mixed with the local crop definitely down. On the bright side Varroa mite numbers appear to be substantially down compared to this time last year.
The BCHPA convention at the Coast Hotel in October is fast approaching. We need your support to help make the convention a success. Please try to attend our next meeting, which will be primarily devoted to the convention.

AGENDA

• Winter preparation of colonies.
• Convention planning.

A bee makes 2,000 forays to flowers to produce just a thimbleful of honey.

 
Brenda's Buzz Line
I hope everyone enjoyed the summer. My bees certainly enjoyed the blooms. Purple was a big colour for them this year starting with sage then moving to chives, marjoram, onion, elephant garlic, thistle and finally my various mints. A reminder for everyone to bring in pictures of bee plants for Diana's reference book.
Honey Tasting
Reading the newsletters of other clubs, I noticed they are having honey tasting contests. Perhaps we should be doing the same before our liquid crystallizes. Therefore, if possible, bring a sample of your honey and even if we do not have official "winners" we can all win by sampling the tastes of our area.
 
Bee Potions
Honey Whole Wheat Bread
(From Great Whole Grain Breads by Beatrice A. Ojakangas, publisher New York: Dutton 1984)
Very Moist – good for sandwiches (BJ)
2 Loaves
1 pack dry yeast
1.5 cups warm water (105-115° F)
2 eggs (room temp.)
¼ cup honey
2 teaspoons salt
¼ cup butter
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour or unbleached all purpose
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water: let stand 5 minutes, until yeast begins to foam. Add eggs, honey, salt and whole wheat flour: beat until smooth. Let stand covered for 30 minutes or until mixture looks puffy.
Beat in the bread flour, ½ (1) cup at a time, until dough is stiff. Let stand 15 minutes. Turn out onto floured board and knead until smooth, about 10 minutes. Rub soft butter on kneading surface and knead for further 5 minutes until butter fully combined. Wash bowl, grease lightly; add dough to bowl, turn over to grease top.
Cover and let rise in a warm place until double, about 1 hour: punch down. Divide into 2 loaves.
Place into two 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch lightly greased loaf pans. Let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes to 1 hour: bake in a preheated 375 ° F oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until loaves sound hollow when tapped. Remove from pans and cool on racks.
(I find this a very sticky dough. I usually end up adding about ½ to 1 cup more of white flour depending on the moisture of my flour. If I add more than a ½ cup I add it during the kneading. The dough still sticks to my hand, but it is managable.)
Winter's Coming
There are many late summer and fall factors that will directly affect the productivity and health of your hives next spring . These include winter stores, diseases and pests, queen quality and robbing.
Removal of surplus honey early provides time for the bee keeper to utilize the warmer temperatures to process liquid honey, feed, fight pests and medicate bees. What does early mean? The suggested date of removal at the SFU Bee Masters course was August 15^th. There may be more nector flow after this time, but it will be minimal and is better left to the bees.
The bees should be allowed to keep the second brood chamber of honey, which most often has been shaped to provide food for the brood and optimum warmth for the colder weather. Stealing this honey will create a need for the bees to rebuild the structure – a difficult task without large amounts of resources.
Feeding bees light in stores is important. The warmer weather will allow the bees to evaporate the moisture and invert the sucrose sugar to invert sugars which bees use.
The warmer weather is also important for the prevention and control of diseases and pests. Most mite control products are effective only during relatively warm weather.
The quality of your queen now will provide you with a prognosis for spring build-up. If your queen is old or not laying well, (remembering there will be less brood now due to less resources) replace her now so that you can start with a young, healthy queen. Local queens may be more available now than in the spring.
Prevent robbing by wasps and other bees by combining weak hives and reducing entrances. Weak hives can be placed on top of stronger hives with a couple layers of newspaper between. Place a few cuts in the paper. One opinion is to also include a queen excluder, so that the queens themselves do not fight. After a few days or a week you will have only one queen and the hives can be combined completely. If you have a preference for one of the queens, you will have to find and remove the undesired queen.
Detailed tips and answers to your questions will be available at the meeting on Wednesday the 26^th.
Choosing a Carbohydrate
R.E.L (Dick) Rogers, apiculturist/tree fruit entomologist of the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture in Kentville NS wrote an interesting article for Hivelights' 1995 August issue. In the article he compared various carbohydrates for feeding bees.
The sugars compared were:

• high fructose corn syrup 55 (HFCS55) – 55% fructose, 41% dextrose, 4% other
• high fructose corn syrup 42 (HFCS42) - 42% fructose, 53% dextrose, 5% other
• glucose syrup – 50% dextrose, 50% sucrose
• granular white cane sugar – 100% sucrose (66% in syrup)