Good Afternoon Fellow Beekeepers,

With May is just a few days away, it is time for Mid-Michigan Beekeepers Club Meeting.

When: Thursday May 3rd, 2012

Where: Richfield Township Hall 5381 N. State Road
Davison MI 48423

Time: doors open at 6:30p.m. Meeting starts at 7:00p.m.


Our guest speaker for our May meeting is Don Schram. Don will be talking on bees swarming, and what we can do to prevent that. He will also be touching base on a “quick and dirty splits” in your hives.

In touching base on the swarming and quick & dirty splits will help Beekeepers know what to do before their hives swarm and help. Those Beekeepers who are serious on learning a basic level class on splitting and making queens.

Any Beekeepers wanting to commit to a Queen Rearing class in June, please sign up with me, we need at least 15 people.

We will be also doing a Bee Trivia with 36 questions to see what else we can learn about honey bees.

[size=15]Please bring your cages back to this meeting if you haven’t returned them to Dave Anthony already. I will contact him and have his come to the meeting and pick up the cages.


How did your bee installation go? I haven't heard from too many people how their bee installation went. Does anyone have any comments?

I personally want to apologize to all you beekeepers who have ordered bees this year and for the confusion upon pickup. I didn't think they would come in that early with the weather we were having. I needed to get away before my surgery. We will have a different set up next year when it comes to our bee order. I promise better organization.

I also would like to give Sabrina Van Dyke credit for being good tough sport. She had helped out Greg Tobin by installing his bees and was attacked by his colony. The bees swarmed into her head net. She was by herself and ran to the neighbors for help and went to the emergency room. The doctor “pulled” out the stingers and gave her a shot. Isn’t it funny how doctors don’t know that pulling stingers out just adds more venom to the victim?

I would like to ask you as a group what type of float can we come up with using the theme “It’s a Bright Sunflower Day!” The Mayville Sunflower Festival Parade is Friday July 27th at 6:00p.m. Looking for a few volunteers to help out and help pass out flyers. Parade last about hour-hour half.

Rough idea I thought of for a float was decorating a flower bed with sunflowers, have a few (human) bees act like their pollinating the flowers and each time they pollinate the flower the bees can pull up the sunflower and make it look like it growing with their pollination.

The float will be decorated with sunflowers and bees four signs on the float.

One sign stating “MICHIGAN LOCAL BEEKEEPERS help make “It a Bright Sunflower Day!” (On Back of the trailer)

One sign stating Mid- Michigan Beekeepers Club Davison first Thursday of the month at 7p.m. at 5381 N. State Road Davison MI (on front of truck)

Two sign stating; “Michigan Honey Festival July 28th Imlay City Fairgrounds” with address, time, hand out flyers also with directions. (On side of the trailer)

I am looking into getting some flower seeds that we can pass out also.

On a final note I would like to thank everyone for their patience with my return response in emails the past few weeks. As most of you know I had gall bladder surgery on April 11th, and this past weekend April 24th, I tripped on a rug runner in my house and injured my (L) knee. Double sprained, along torn ligaments, cartridges, muscles and more. They said it would have been better if I broke it, as it would heal faster then it will. So when you see me this week I will be using a walker.

Thank you to Wilda & Jim Dodder, who lent me their walker to use.

I also want to thank Wilda and the Mid-Michigan Beekeepers club for the beautiful plant you sent me at the time of my surgery. Thank you for thinking of me.

Look forward to seeing you all this week. Take care and have a great week.

Barb [/size]