The Auction has ended and the WillBees basket went for $200.00!

The Will County Farm Bureau Foundation raised $27,490.00 for scholarships.

The 2024 Will County Farm Bureau Foundation Online Auction is up and running now though 9:00PM Feb. 1, 2024

WillBees members have contributed items for the auction (see the photo above) and the proceeds will go to support the next generation’s education through scholarship to Will County youth. WillBees receives significant benefits From Will County Farm Bureau including providing rent free access to their building for meetings and storage, WillBees USPS mailing address and oversight, referrals for us for swarm removals, other referrals for general information from the public, and a free booth at the Will County Fair. They have been generous to WillBees without requiring WCFB membership and this is a small gesture to repay a little for a good cause. Former WillBees member Brandon Price was a recipient of one of the scholarships last year. Follow the link to the online auction and bid on our basket (towards the bottom of the items) or any other items to help this good cause.

November, our last meeting of the year, and just in time for now you get an extra day in your month to hit the malls and start shopping for the holidays. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Today’s meeting is dedicated to all of you, our members for making it such a great year. As you can see here, it takes an army of folks that love our club to join us, and contribute their time, effort and resources to make each meeting informative, each Beespace newsletter interesting, each extractor rental available, each field day event successful and above all to share the responsibility so every member can enjoy our gatherings to the fullest.

This list behind me is our WillBees army, and everyone of you is on that list as members, and as many as contributors. Thank you all for joining us over the bee season and your hard work. Please, let’s give everyone a hand … a pat on the back or just a smile in appreciation. I also wanted to mention something that the bee board really loves …  hearing feedback at the end of the night or through email … whether it on a presentation, or how how much you enjoyed the evening. It really goes a long way to motivating us for the next meeting.

In celebration of a great year, I just wanted to make sure everyone was able to grab some pizza. Excellent. Please be sure to leave a slice for me.

We have a jam-packed evening, but there’s a few members I feel we need to acknowledge for their extraordinary efforts over the year.

Dennis Wisnosky for being the man behind the website curtain. We now have a “world class” website!

Keith Meiser for the tons of volunteer time including building an observations hive, website back-end work and manning the awareness events through extreme temperatures.

Susan Gregory for scheduling WillBee awareness events and running the summer picnic practically solo.

Fran Miller for scheduling speakers, researching wearables, overall club operations … a true Wonder Woman).

Dave Meyer for being Dave Meyer.

It’s here, the cool morning temperatures, the dew on the grass, the smell of crisp leaves that tumble down to cover our laws. Colors of yellow, orange and red are bursting magically overnight in the trees around us.

Corn stalks and creepy characters are taking over our homes, while pumpkin everything is now available like Cheerios, coffee, bath and body works candles and cremes, and tempting pumpkin desserts to name just a few. You all know what I’m talking about, it’s fall. This is a special time of the year for many parts of the world because the growing season, as we know it, is just about over. It’s time to harvest, while giving a little nod to the long winter which will follow soon after.

 But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Fall is a time for celebration… And we deserve it.

We have worked hard over the spring, summer and fall. In addition, we’ve left our bee yard with “what next scenarios” including how to deal with spring losses, wondering how my hive became queenless, stressing over hives the are determined to swarm, pesty invaders like small hive beetles, mites and perhaps some rodents. There were cool, rainy days were timing was such you simply needed to “bear and grin it” to take care of your hives. We also dealt with sweltering hot days where wearing a heavy bee suit wasn’t ideal as the salty sweat dripped from our foreheads leaving our eyes to sting.

 So yes, after that last crank of the extractor, and hauling multiple five gallon pails of golden honey to a safe spot in till its time to bottle, you can put a smile on your face… I know I did… 

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.

Download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.
Weekly: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/tZ0qcu6oqjosE9SxLmZYLdDImbHFmu-6zQmh/ics?icsToken=98tyKuGhqT4tGtCUthCHRpx5B4_4KPTwiH5dj_puhDPoORl_ZiffO-BqFL9qXY7K

Go to the website

https://www.ilsba.com/summary-of-events.html

Join your friends and fellow Beekeeping enthusiasts for another fun and fact filled Willbees meeting:

September 

• Quick notes from the board  – Wanna be a board member? 
• Financial report
• Who’s new?
• In your September/October BEE SPACE newsletter 
• Beecabulary
• Jim Lindau and Candles
• Will County Fair Recap
• The Good, The Bad, The Sticky of Harvesting Honey
• Field Days
• Ongoing ed
• Odds and ends
• Q and A
• Door prize and 50/50