I, like many members of Penobscot County Beekeepers Association, am still on a high after the great success of hosting the Maine State Beekeepers Association’s annual meeting and conference.
The choice to use Hampden Academy as our venue was perfect. The performing arts center was very comfortable with a huge screen and great lighting and sound system for our speakers to deliver some quite outstanding presentations. The reception area and cafeteria gave us loads of room for more than 200 attendees to eat and talk to some of the many vendors and view nearly 100 raffle items. We had vendors from all over Maine and even Canada.
Our keynote speaker, Dr. Dewey Caron, lives in Portland, Oregon, for half the year and Bolivia the rest of the year. Growing bees in Oregon is not very different from Maine, but raising Africanized bees — often called killer bees — in Bolivia would not be my kind of beekeeping! He gave a couple of great presentations aimed at the beginner beekeeper and the experienced. Dewey was very entertaining. His morning talk on reading the brood frame underlined how so much can be read from the briefest hive inspections — you just need to know what the bees are telling us and respond by providing them with what they need. His afternoon talk on bee stewardship concentrated upon the concept of integrated pest management and that following a multilevel approach to controlling pests, like the varroa mite, is yielding the best results for beekeepers.
Matt Scot gave a thought-provoking talk on the effects of climate change on Maine beekeeping. Along with climate change, we can expect more urbanization, which is affecting our environment and the bees we try to keep in it.
David Smith, assistant state apiarist, stood in for his boss, Tony Jadczak, who was unable to attend this year for health reasons. Bees in Maine did pretty well this year. We did have three outbreaks of american foul brood in the state, which underlines the value and importance of registering bee hives.
Erin McGreggor Forbes presented her findings of the three-year study she conducted on the effect of having northern reared queens in Maine compared to southern reared queens. The significant positive impact this had on survival was quite striking. I believe we will see a move to a lot more queen rearing in Maine.
Abigail Sennet, 16, gave a very high-quality presentation of her research into methods of introducing new queens to nucs, or small hives. I have seen a lot of university biology students in the United Kingdom and in Maine give presentations of their research projects, and Abbey gave at least as good a presentation as those. Little wonder she was voted Maine’s Junior Beekeeper of the Year.
Maine’s Beekeeper of the Year was presented to a couple this year, Dick and Jean Vose. They are credited with founding the Knox Lincoln County Beekeepers chapter of MSBA in 2003. They have contributed so much to their region’s beekeepers and all those in the state through mentoring, teaching and organizing state and local events.
Many beekeepers brought some of their own honey to be judged in a blind taste test by hundreds of fellow beekeepers. This year the honey voted the best in Maine was shared by two beekeepers Geoff MacLean of Red Brook Honey, Scarborough and a local beekeeper Mahlon Wood of Uncle Woody’s of Hermon.
I would like to sincerely thank the members of staff and student helpers of Hampden Academy for all their help in making this such a success. In addition, dozens of members of the Penobscot County Beekeepers, especially Caitlyn Barker, gave up many evenings and missed some of the day’s presentations to make this event run so smoothly. Thank you to all!
For now, my bees are drinking down the last sugar syrup I can get into them before winter sets in. They already have their mouse guards on. I will soon give the hives a rim of wood to give them a ventilation hole at the top of the hive and will place a moisture absorbing board above the inner cover. My last activity before winter will be to nestle some of the small nuc hives together for warmth. Then it’s time to prepare for more beekeeping classes next year!
Peter Cowin, aka The Bee Whisperer, is president of the Penobscot County Beekeepers Association. His activities include honey production, pollination services, beekeeping lessons, sales of bees and bee equipment and the removal of feral bee hives from homes and other structures. Check out “The Bee Whisperer” on Facebook, email petercowin@tds.net or call 207-299-6948.