FROM THE EDITORS DESK: February 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Are we going to have an early Spring? It depends on
which ground hog you listen to, or whose bees. Our
bees were out and buzzing on February 1, so maybe we
should trade them as an indicator instead of that
silly ground hog. Of course we had 4 inches of snow
two days later, but what can we tell about the
weather?
I found a few interesting websites:
www.benefits-of-honey.com/index.html
www.glenn-apiaries.com/honey_bee_beekeeping_news.html
They have links to just about everything you might like to share with friends and non beekeepers especially.
Did you see the new TV program on the Food channel called "I Work for Food"? The first episode has the host working as a lobsterman and then learning the ins and outs of beekeeping in 15 minutes. He visited a large bee farm and goes through the motions of seeing how the honey is removed using fume boards and then loaded onto trucks and extracted in a large scale operation. It was a pretty fair description of a beekeepers life and the photography was quite good. I was impressed that beekeeping was one of the first professions that they chose to depict on the show, and explain the importance of honey bees to our food chain.
The "Secret Life of Bees" DVD is out this week for those of you who missed seeing it in the movies. The book alone was responsible for lots of new members to this club, I wonder if the movie has made any of you newbies that have been emailing me get the “bug”? Let me know.
My great neighbor Michael Huggins is in his third tour of duty in Afghanistan and even though he is separated from his wife and daughter and working in a war zone amid I cannot image what conditions, he took the time to send me an article from the magazine Freedom Watch Afghanistan “Keeping The Bees”. I will excerpt a little of the article for you, and thank Mike for his thinking of us, and ask you to keep him in your prayers for his safe work and return.
“Keeping The Bees”
Surviving primarily on subsistence farming, many Afghans teeter on the edge of malnutrition and starvation every year. In one of the most violent provinces an American team is working with the government to help feed its people, to expand the reach of the pollinators. Not only do they hope to breed more bees, they hope to build more beehives. Bees also produce raw materials for the Afghan people to trade and barter. It is the hope of the Afghan beekeepers to one day export these goods to other countries.
I have attached a copy of the Survey of New York State Beekeeper and Apiary Yard Location Data for your information. While the state would describe registration as "mandatory", the "Apiary Inspection Advisory Board" recently voted to adopt a motion that they request that implementation of the program be delayed. So, I would call participation "optional" for the time being. Perhaps we should say that no other beekeeping organizations in NY have supported this program as the regulations are worded, and that Paul Cappy is coming in March to speak to us, and answer our questions about this new program. So I have included this form as sent to me by our president. It is a separate attachment for those on line.
I found a few interesting websites:
www.benefits-of-honey.com/index.html
www.glenn-apiaries.com/honey_bee_beekeeping_news.html
They have links to just about everything you might like to share with friends and non beekeepers especially.
Did you see the new TV program on the Food channel called "I Work for Food"? The first episode has the host working as a lobsterman and then learning the ins and outs of beekeeping in 15 minutes. He visited a large bee farm and goes through the motions of seeing how the honey is removed using fume boards and then loaded onto trucks and extracted in a large scale operation. It was a pretty fair description of a beekeepers life and the photography was quite good. I was impressed that beekeeping was one of the first professions that they chose to depict on the show, and explain the importance of honey bees to our food chain.
The "Secret Life of Bees" DVD is out this week for those of you who missed seeing it in the movies. The book alone was responsible for lots of new members to this club, I wonder if the movie has made any of you newbies that have been emailing me get the “bug”? Let me know.
My great neighbor Michael Huggins is in his third tour of duty in Afghanistan and even though he is separated from his wife and daughter and working in a war zone amid I cannot image what conditions, he took the time to send me an article from the magazine Freedom Watch Afghanistan “Keeping The Bees”. I will excerpt a little of the article for you, and thank Mike for his thinking of us, and ask you to keep him in your prayers for his safe work and return.
“Keeping The Bees”
Surviving primarily on subsistence farming, many Afghans teeter on the edge of malnutrition and starvation every year. In one of the most violent provinces an American team is working with the government to help feed its people, to expand the reach of the pollinators. Not only do they hope to breed more bees, they hope to build more beehives. Bees also produce raw materials for the Afghan people to trade and barter. It is the hope of the Afghan beekeepers to one day export these goods to other countries.
I have attached a copy of the Survey of New York State Beekeeper and Apiary Yard Location Data for your information. While the state would describe registration as "mandatory", the "Apiary Inspection Advisory Board" recently voted to adopt a motion that they request that implementation of the program be delayed. So, I would call participation "optional" for the time being. Perhaps we should say that no other beekeeping organizations in NY have supported this program as the regulations are worded, and that Paul Cappy is coming in March to speak to us, and answer our questions about this new program. So I have included this form as sent to me by our president. It is a separate attachment for those on line.