Improve Your Beekeeping
Workshop
Cranbrook, March 2 This one-day educational workshop welcomed Karen and Gil Pedersen of Pedersen Apiaries, Saskatchewan, to provide beekeepers with information on queen rearing, spring management, disease management and preparing and overwintering nucs. Highlights included:
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Year-round single brood box with a top entrance below an excluder.
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Bury hives with snow over winter, well-wrapped, well-fed, and wall-to-wall-with-bees.
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Oxalic Acid Drizzle fall treatment for Varroa mites.
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Everyone should breed (or at least reproduce) their own queens.
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Never stop learning and experimenting … and how to do that right!
Other presentations during the day:
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Axel Krause, West Kootenay and Boundary Apiairy Inspector with the Ministry of Agriculture, provided information on disease management.
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Dan Mawson, the new East Kootenay Apiary Inspector introduced himself and said his role was “free beekeeping roadside assistance.”
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Jeff Lee, owner of Swan Valley Honey in Creston, introduced the Iotron sterilization program for hive equipment in Coquitlam, and funding he has secured to cover transportation for beekeepers in our region.
Resources
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KBFA Workshop Summary, including management details from the Pedersen’s presentation (edited for accuracy by Karen Pedersen)
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Free book downloads, Regina and District Bee Club
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Oxalic Acid Drizzle late fall Varroa treatment with Karen Pedersen on Regina Bee TV.
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ScientificBeekeeping.com instructions to test for Varroa with a 35% alcohol wash.
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The same site has a statistical comparison with the sticky board method, shown to be inferior.
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Rob Currie’s economic threshold for Varroa Mite treatment:
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1% in April to July, 3% in September, 10% once very little brood is present
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Bee Clubs: East Kootenay Beekeepers, West Kootenay Beekeepers, BC Honey Producers Association
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Iotron Sterilization program (link coming soon) managed by Jeff and Amanda Lee in Creston.
Where & When:
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Cranbrook, March 2, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm, Cranbrook Eagle’s Hall
Presenters:
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Karen Pedersen and Gil Pedersen of Pedersen Apiaries
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Axel Krause, Apiary Inspector West Kootenay & Boundary, BC Ministry of Agriculture
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Dan Mawson, Apiary Inspector East Kootenay, BC Ministry of Agriculture
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Jeff Lee, Iotron sterilization project coordinator
Coordinated by the Kootenay & Boundary Farm Advisors and the East Kootenay Beekeepers Association
