October Presidents Message – Welcome to October

Welcome to October. This is the time of the year
when we start to ramp down bee activities. Yes,
I’m sure some of us will be feeding those light
hives, or making sugar bricks for emergency
feedings. Or maybe you still have a few supers
on with the hope that they will cap the
remaining few frames from the fall nectar flow
like me. But it won’t be long till they are all
bundled away.

With the August and September drought, I
found my last nectar flow to be pretty dismal,
but I know this was not the case for everyone.
While we all live in our small portion of Illinois
called Will County or nearby, and generally
experience the same weather conditions, we do
have environmental uniquenesses that may
include natural water sources such as lakes, or
rivers, or forests vs prairie land, or flat suburban
manicured lawns, versus hilly terrain. I’m sure
all these variables play into the microclimates
that influence what our bees are bringing in.

Speaking of micro climates, I would like to
share 2 quick stories. My wife and I just got
back from a little trip out to the East Coast to

visit my nephew and his family. Has anyone
ever heard the term “leaf peepers”? I heard of
Peeping Toms , but “leaf peepers” is new to me
and I guess … since we had planned the trip
around seeing the fall colors …we fell under
that category.

Here’s the interesting part. We landed in Boston
with most trees pretty much green. As we made
our way up to Lebonon, which is only 2 hours
north, we saw the trees turn into a seasonal
splendor of yellow, orange and red. When we
finally arrived at my nephew’s house… again,
just a few hours away, trees were beyond their
peak with some trees turning barren.

Perhaps the warmth of the ocean breeze
helped to keep Boston trees green, while the
inland locations with no thermal protection
triggered the color changes.

I saw this again when my wife and I made a trip
to Galinia, Ilinois from our first home in Munster
Indiana. At that time, my wife took up the hobby
of making dried floral arrangements. As we
trekked westward during that fall weekend on
the backroad of Illinois, we were awe-struck by

a field of brilliant blooming flowers. These would
be perfect for her hobby once dried. So we
stopped and plucked a few of these exotic
prairie flowers that must be specific to this
region only. One more bunch was added to our
subcompact car, and we were back on the road
with smiles…. which turned to frowns.

As we continued on our way, we started to be
infested with little yellow beetles. Being nobody
really like to have things crawling up their neck
while driving … but not willing to give up our
lucky find … we stopped and moved our
luggage to the back seat, and the flowers to the
truck.

That worked well till my wife’s allergies started
to flair up and the sneezing began. Yet, another
stop to grab her inhaler and allergy meds. We
weren’t about to give up yet… after all, we
thought these flowers only bloomed in the little
micro-climate of Illinois… right?

As the trip continued up and down the rolling
hills of the surrounding Glalinia area, and the
sun warmed the contents of the trunk, my wife
noticed a stinky smell. Could that be the

flowers? … And that … was the final straw, we
pulled over for the third time to toss our lucky
find back into the prairie fields.

So what does this have to do with beekeeping?
This was the rare plant better known as
goldenrod!

And here’s the funny part, as we made our way
home just a few days later, goldenrod
surrounded us everywhere, and was just a few
miles from our home.

So, let me ask you, who saw a good goldenrod
fall nectar flow?

2024 September Presidents Message – Patients, who has time for it?

Whether it’s waiting at a long TSA line at the airport hoping we won’t miss the flight, or standing by the phone for the doctor to say the scans all look good … patience is something we all struggle with.

How many of you remember this Nestle Quick commercial from when you were a kid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfKvwd2hkIg

I would say that most of us, especially as we grew up … the word “patient” wasn’t necessarily celebrated in our vocabulary. And somewhere between when I was a kid to where we are now, the world has been turning faster and faster and patience has all but disappeared. Perhaps there’s something to be learned from when life was a bit slower and you had no choice but to let things cool down before you reacted.

As a young lad, I would get a comic book for a birthday or another special occasion. Now I have to admit, I wasn’t a comic book type of kid, but I remember looking at the back page, drooling all over the nifty items and gadgets that could only be had through mail order…things like sea monsters (which actually turned out to be brine shrimp), x-ray vision glasses (which did a better job of making you blind), an all sorts of other magical items like growing rocks, which did work.  Once I scraped enough money together, I would have my mom send a check through snail mail and then I patiently and I mean patiently waited, waited and waited some more. Back in the 1970’s, it was normal to wait 8-12 weeks for delivery whether you ordered Don Ho’s Hawaiian greatest hits box set, or Popeil’s pocket fisherman. Today, you can order those x-ray glasses and have them delivered from Amazon in a matter of hours. Instant gratification without pondering … is this really such a great thing? Do I really need x-ray vision, or Don Ho’s greatest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V58lYBvygI) hits instantly? There isn’t even time for buyer’s remorse.

Mail order was a great way to learn patience as a kid, and so was glue. You all know what I’m talking about. Whether you were working on a model airplane or gluing paper together for an art project, patience was needed for the glue to “set,” meaning we had to wait some more. And what if you didn’t? Well, the wheels of your model car would fall off, roll off the table’s edge, and right under the kitchen stove only to be found when mom started cooking. The smell of melting plastic filled the kitchen.

Today we are all about “now.” Every ounce of patience that we learned from the past has all but disappeared.

We don’t need to wait to see a movie, we can see it now on OnDemand. We don’t wait to have a delivery; we have Amazon Prime. We don’t have to wait for a meal, we have more fast-food places that we can count on to fill our demanding bellies of feed me NOW.

So, what does beekeeping have to do with patience? Well, like that glue that seemed to take hours to dry, Mother Nature sets the pace. We need to work with her timetable and understand the cycle of the bees, or it could be costly.

Let me explain. Even as I’m up here talking about learning patience as a kid, I had a moment just like that Nestle Quick Bunny of freaking out. It was an odd week back in late May. I had several swarms that as much as I tried… I simply could not prevent them.

Knowing a new queen was going to take 16 days to emerge, and then another week to 10 days for her to start laying, I counted the days till I did my inspection and searched for eggs. To my disappointment, I had about 6 queenless hives. Not a single egg anywhere. How could this be, and right at the beginning of the nectar flow to make matters worse? My honey season is going to be a total bust. I felt I had no choice but to fix the situation and without delay. We can do that nowadays you know… the good old days are gone with waiting 8-12 weeks for a delivery. I can get a queen in hours in the form of Dave. In desperation, I called him and told him my dilemma. We immediately went into planning mode. When will you have them … can we meet in Warrenville … how many do you need? Yipes! That much. Do I get a friend discount?

Patience … what patience?

However, between that call, and my normal life obligations, liking having a job to pay for my wife’s pedicures and mortgage, we never met up. And that’s where patience came back into play, and it was a good thing. I’ve played this queen less game before and have been on the wrong side of the “fix” by acquiring a queen only to find eggs present at my next visit when installing her. And now I must deal with a new situation of having an extra queen and no more equipment. Ugg!

So, like letting the glue set, I decided to wait and go to work to save my job. Plus the cost of 6 queens at $35 a head was pretty hard for me to swallow. But I did right, all but 1 of those hives had eggs or capped brood on the next inspection. And what about that last hive, they had eggs a week later. Patience prevailed!

April 2024 Message from the President

This is my son Jake and our dog. Jake recently accompanied me in my bee mobile, better known as a dodge caravan, or thefamily hauler, or even the swagger wagon if you are Austin Powers. It has brought my family to multiple grocery stores, college visits and family fun road trips. It has even helped uswith moving our kids out into college dorms. An exciting, but sad day for us, now empty nesters.

Between all those family activities, it has been my wife’s car that will be forever ingrained with her touches, like the slightly torn seat edging from her “bedazzled jeans studs” or the plethora of air freshener pouches scattered throughout cabin to combat the sweaty and gross smells of children from sporting events … and lets not forget the radio station presets that I have no idea of how to change, but that’s okay, I have no gripe about having a variety of radio stations as long as there isn’t one set on smooth jazz. Who listens to that stuff? And now, the last leg of the van will serve as my Bee Mobile in which I’m already starting to add my own touches, such as the sweet smell of honey fames and sticky propolis on the doorhandles. I ask you, can you all relate?

 A couple weeks ago my son came in for the weekend. It’s a rare occurrence, and even rarer when his weekend isn’t filled with catching up with his friends from the neighborhood. With thet emps in the 60’s, I wanted to break into the hives for the first big inspection of the year and also to prep them for the upcoming season, which included adding queen excluders, supers and culling out old frames, which we will talk about tonight. I asked Jake if he could give his old man a helping hand and I was delightfully surprised when he said yes. We loaded the Bee Mobile with enough supers to give 2 to each of the hive … about 20 or so, along with the variety of beekeeping tools.

 We made 1 stop on our way out, a pine tree at the Target parking lot for needles to feed the smokers. How long will it take he asked? I said only a couple hours. I was way too optimistinc. 5 hours, 12 hives , 3 locations, and 2 strawberry shakes later, we were finally done. The remaining hives at my last apiary will just have to be tackled another day since the day was getting long and I was just plain too tired.

 I heard a quote from a recent movie that I love, “No great idea ever happened without a dream.” Was beekeeping a dream for me, or is it even a great idea? How about for all of you? For me, I would say yes to some degree, but to have a small business was more of the dream … perhaps to sell a few bottles of honey, or even someday open up a honey shop like one of our members did in Lisle. Just like his willingness on that Saturday to help me in the hives, Jake volunteered at home with taking this beekeeping business idea on by building me an online store. He apparently did it right. Searching for honey in my area within google putsme near the top of the listings. Our little bee business was born.  Thanks Jake, once again.

 

It was really nice to have him join me on that 60 degree day. Hesaved me hours of time, and strain on my back, but it was so much more than that. For a change, I had more of a companion other than my trusty Bee Mobile and those wifey preset stations.  Instead of the airways being filled with DJ banter and overplayed tunes, it was filled with whatever conversation came to mind between us … along with the low rumble of the Bee Mobile’s failing exhaust system. Yes, we added a few more found memories to the old van, as well as few more clicks to the odometer, thanks Jake and beekeeping.

March 2024 Message from the President

March – the lucky month

The “luck of the Irish” sings proud in the month of March. Bagpipes, Irish dancers, and St Patrick. Did you know that on of St Patrick’s miracles was turning water into honey, how cool is that? Being my name is Patrick, have blue eyes, and was born just a half hour before St Patrick’s day, you may think I have that lucky Irish blood.

NOPE. I don’t have a lick of leprechaun in my blood, and thank goodness because I find this guy to be pretty creepy… my mom just liked the name Patrick and my parents claimed they weren’t counting 9 months out to St Patrick’s day when they were under the covers being frisky.

So, when it comes to coming out of winter with my bees, I can’t rely on Irish luck. I checked my hives in February and gave them what they needed before everything started to turn shamrock green. The warm weather provided a good indicator that of most my hives were in good standing just from looking outside of them.

As you can see here, they were busy… the warm weather encouraged the willows to bud out and the bees fly encouraging them to bring in pollen as a source of protein to feed the larva. How exciting. The bee season has begun, even if it was in late February when I filmed this. Perhaps you saw the same thing at your hives.

So, what is luck?

Is it your bees making it through the winter? Perhaps.

Is luck getting another year out of your 3 year old queen? Perhaps.

Is luck capturing your own swarm? Perhaps.

Is luck not losing your hive tool? Perhaps.

Is luck having a bountiful harvest? Perhaps.

Or is luck just a made-up word … and that we control the fate of our honeybee’s journey. Quite honestly, I think it’s both. Silly stuff like not losing my hive tool isn’t lucky, its being mindful where I put the darn thing. Getting 3 years out of a queen … well with all the talk if of queens lasting 1-2 years, I guess this could be in the lucky category, or just good genetics. I would say capturing your own swarm is pretty darn lucky… like I did last year. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time… it was luck.

And what about a good harvest? Well, that would be a combination of luck with the weather and good beekeeping practices.

Perhaps if we all carry a 4-leaf clover, while holding a rabbit’s foot, and rubbing Lincoln’s nose, while mounting a horseshoe over our hives, and picking up that lucky penny, we’ll all be lucky going into the bee season and harvest gold in the fall.

Speaking of luck, I was driving home with my wife one misty day when the sun broke through.  I saw a rainbow form that led directly into the Meijer gas station off of Bell Road. With all its brilliance, I told my wife “this has to be a sign to stop in and buy a lotto ticket … this is heaven’s way of saying “your pot of gold awaits.”

The next morning, I pulled out my lotto ticket …  and guess what? Not a single number matched. Not one!

I guess the phrase, “the luck of a beekeeper” isn’t a phrase that has much merit… and what about the old saying that a rainbow has a pot of gold at the end … whatever! I’m sticking with good bee management and leaving luck to when it happens and certainly not counting on it in my bee yard.

February 2024 Message from the President

valentine president msgBy now you all know that I like to share stories of my upbringing. I came from a family that pinching pennies was a way of life, so when it came to leaving Chicago for a tropical location in the depths of winter, specifically February … well that was never going to happen. Perhaps that’s why any hope of having some fun during this month was centered around Valentine’s day and not a beach or Disney Land.

By the way, I did a little digging to find out about Valentines day.

As it turns out, it’s not very clear. According one online reputable source, it may of has its origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was held in mid-February. The festival celebrated the coming of spring, but that’s not all. It also included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men by lottery. Just to set everyone at ease, we will not be doing that here tonight.

Let’s go back to when I was in grade school. A week or so before the heart filled day, my teacher would hand out a list of all the students, which we all would use to write our Valentine’s day cards. Does this sound familiar to any of you?

Some cards where cool, like cartoon monsters or hot rod cars… I loved getting those, but those were more pricey … even at the local Kmart, so my mom always lead me to the cheapy box that featured the typical chubby cupid the with bow and arrow, or the red heart that said “be mine.” Perhaps several of you can relate. If not, well I have some good news, it just happens that I have some Valentine’s cards for you all.

Please take one and pass them on and feel free to open them up.

I want to share a little oops I did one year, and even after 42 years I still can’t get out of my head. I was in 4th grade at the time. I told my mom that I was going to take the easy route by not filling in the “to” lines to all the cards. I filled in my name in the “from line”, then just randomly handed out cards to the left and to the right, to friends, and to other classmates without reading the message on the cards. I saved gobs of time not having to practice my penmanship with filling all those names. It was a brilliant plan… or was it?

As my classmates opened and read the cards, I started get odd looks from them. My face turned bright red as I realized some of those cards … in that dreaded box of Kmart cards may not have so perfect… especially to other guys with sayings such as, “You’re so cute”, “Be mine” and “You go over big with me.” Yes, I basically handed out cards to guys that made everyone wonder about “what up with Patrick.” That Valentine’s day school party couldn’t end quick enough. Taking the easy route may not have been the best choice.

February is a month that most of us feel can’t end quick enough… right?. Snow, cold, slushy streets and short days don’t play well with most. March is just around the corner, so the days and weather will be turning in our favor. But until then … we can’t forget that this is a crucial time for our bees. It’s been almost 4 months since they forged for nectar, so their reserves may be running low. Much like that Valentine’s day party that yielded cards and candy, it’s time to take a peak … quickly opening your hives to give them some Valentine’s day love with an emergency sugar brick to help them get through to the first nectar flow. And while you’re at it, dropping in a pollen patty will help your hive with rearing new bees. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the treats as much as I do, especially if they are Fannie Mae turtles… yummy. Don’t take the easy road by not checking in on them, after all … you got them this far! Win them over as a caring and loving beekeeper by giving them some love.

Okay, let’s wrap this Valentine’s Day talk with a little surprise. Who has a round gold sticker on their bee card.  Cool, please step up. No Valentine’s Day would be complete without flowers, enjoy.

When your honeybees are huddled Don’t beefuddled – Get educated

The WillBees website https://willbees.org/education/ has much information and places to visit to help us get through the Winter blahs and advance our honeybee farming knowledge.

•Beekeeping Classes
Beekeeping Classes available locally from WillBees members
– Introduction To Beekeeping with Beau Wright (Flyer) – Website https://www.maplehillfarm1854.com/classes »
– Beginning Beekeeping with Jim Landau at Joliet Junior College – Website: https://jjc.dcatalog.com »
– Introduction to Successful Beekeeping Workshop with Mike Rusnak – Website: Will County Forest Preserve District »

Every Saturday Breakfast with the Bees – James Konrad

James Konrad: International honey beekeeping expert shares his years of success and failure with well researched topics every Saturday morning to a welcoming hive of participants each with his and her own fool proof honeybee farming practices.

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