October Meeting
Thursday, October 10
Central Skagit Valley Library in Sedro-Woolley

Our monthly meeting is on Thursday, October 10th at 7 PM. We will be meeting at the Central Skagit Valley Library in Sedro-Woolley.

Here's what's up this month:

• A "bee chat" beginning at 6:30 PM - We enjoy a pre-meeting time to share tips and tales with a few refreshments to which everyone is invited.
• Bee talk - The meeting will feature Dawn Beck, who will walk through the best practices for winterizing your hives.
• Nominations - The nominations for officers and 2 board positions for 2025 are on the agenda.
• Survey of 2024 honey harvests results - We will have an informal survey of how everyone fared this honey season - terrible, average, really good, or "holy cow, tons of honey this year".
• Zoom option - If you can't come, but want to participate, you can join us by Zoom. An e-mail with the link will be sent to members before the meeting.

October Speaker 
Dawn Beck on "Winterizing your Hives"
October 10  at the SVBA Meeting

Dawn Beck will bring her accumulated wisdom for a discussion on how to best winterize you hives to get them through the cold months ahead. The benefits of a high survival rate are well worth the extra effort involved. Dawn will add practical tips on how ways to keep the moisture levels down and the ventilation adequate to maintain a relatively dry hive, which is critical to success in the rainy Northwest. She will also talk about what to feed, when to feed, and how to manage mites in the months that lay ahead.

SVBA Leadership Nominations
Coming up in October

As part of our annual cycle, nominations are coming up for our officers (President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary) and two SVBA Board positions at our October meeting. 
 
The Board members serve staggered 3-year terms with a meeting occurring every two months, and provide their advice and the stewardship for our association. If you are interested in serving us in a leadership role - or know someone who would be great at it - get ready with those names and participate in the process. You can contact SVBA President Brett DeLawter through this link brettdelawter@gmail.com, or come prepared to step forward at our regular meeting on Thursday, October 10th.

Thomas D. Seeley is a widely published researcher and lecturer on the behavioral and social life of honeybees. He is a proponent of natural methods of beekeeping, focusing on their observed patterns and vitality. He is a Professor in Biology, in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University back East. He will be online for his talk with us 
from 6:30-7:30pm. Following his talk and a questions and answer session, we will begin our general meeting.

For more information about Professor. Seeley, check out this article in Bee Culture at https://www.beeculture.com/tom-seeley/

Leadership Elections 
At our November meeting

Our annual elections will be part of the November 14th meeting, so join us then.

It's our annual holiday party, with a cookie exchange and a good time for all. Join us on December 12th at 7:00 PM.

We ran across this skep being used in a small beeyard in France while visiting an historic home. We noted a modern detail - a bungee cord has been added  to hold it all together.

Before Reverend Langstroth invented the contemporary boxes and frames that most of us use, traditional beekeepers wove straw into inverted baskets to make the skeps and hold colonies, comb, and honey.

Honey harvesting is a big challenge with skeps. There is a way to drum on the sides and drive the colony with the queen into an empty skep right next to it. Then the full skep can be opened, the honeycomb pulled out, and the comb can be crushed and strained. 
 
Sounds stressful for both beekeepers and bees. Langstroth's invention works better.

Blueberries and Bees
September's Presentation

If you missed the September talk at our meeting, it was eye opening. 
 
Lisa Wasko DeVetter provided a presentation on the interaction among bees and fruit crops, with a particular focus on blueberries. It's a bit complicated. The bees are very good for the blueberries, but the blueberries aren't so good for the bees.
 
She is the Associate Professor for Small Fruit Horticulture at WSU. Lisa is based at the Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center in Mount Vernon. With colleagues, she has been researching this topic for several years.
 
It turns out that bee pollination provides a key boost to blueberry crops which are a very important segment of the Skagit Valley agriculture. When you drive around the flats in early summer, you can spot clusters of hives lined up along the edges of the big blueberry fields. 

But bees have a natural preference for other flowers and a more diverse set of sources. It is difficult for them to pick off the blueberry pollen relative to other flowers, for example.
 
For reasons that are not yet clear, the overall health of bee colonies dedicated to blueberry fields tends to decline substantially after the honey flow. In part, this seems to be due to the typical combination of fungicides and pesticides used by blueberry farmers to protect their crops. The problems are noticeably worse when colonies are concentrated in large clusters next to blueberry fields. It is better to set them up as separated "clumps".
 
Colonies dedicated to blueberry pollen and nectar tend to become infected by European Foul Brood (EFB). This disease can fatally damage hives and must be eradicated when it occurs. Despite its reputation, EFB-infected colonies do not always smell bad. 

• You can detect EFB using kits you can buy, but a simple method uses toothpicks twisted around the cells of obviously dead brood - if there is a stringy residue when you pull it out, EFB is present. 
• EFB can be eradicated in a number of ways, and colonies can even recover from it. It is not as disastrous as American Foul Brood (AFB), but is bad enough.
• We recommend that you search online to learn more about AFB, particularly if your colonies are adjacent to substantial blueberry plantations.

New WSU Extension Publication
A Guide to the Small Hive Beetle

The small hive beetle (SHB) can be a damaging pest that has infested some areas of the U.S. The WSU extension has undertaken a thorough evaluation of its prevalence here, and there is good news. So far, there are no important outbreaks in Northwest Washington. But we need to stay vigilant and ready to respond if they begin to appear in significant numbers.
 
The extension program contacted us to let us know that their research and findings have been published and are now available. 
 
You can find it at https://pubs.extension.wsu.edu/a-guide-to-the-small-hive-beetle-an-emerging-pest-in-washington-state

Here are this month's beekeeping tips, drawn from former SVBA President Brad Raspet's checklist and other wise advisors:

• Calculate the honey stores in your overwintering supers - they will need about 60 pounds of honey it they are to make it through on their own. Some folks use a bathroom scale to be precise about it.
• Close down screened bottom board inserts, and begin reducing the hive opening as cold weather arrives.
• Provide/continue supplemental syrup feeding at 2 parts cane sugar to 1 part water 
• Provide supplemental health syrups such as HBH, particularly for colonies being moved between yards, or other treatments that you may choose.
• Install entrance reducers as the weather turns colder.
• Rearrange top boards and covers to accommodate your moisture control strategies and hive components.
• Add emergency stores of cane sugar or winter bee sugar patties before winter sets in.

Membership in the SVBA
Join or Renew

Annual membership dues are for a calendar year and there is still plenty of time to renew, join or rejoin your SVBA membership. Annual dues are only $12 (or $13 using our online payment system). It's a high value investment and supports the wide range of programs and events that we offer. The membership form and payment instructions are found on our website or by clicking HERE.

The online payment option can be accessed by clicking HERE.

Skagit Valley Beekeepers Association

Brett DeLawter              President  brettdelawter@gmail.com
Dawn Beck                    Vice President   dawnrunner@live.com
Domie Bourgeois         Treasurer/Website Manager domie.bourgeois@gmail.com
Brenda Crossley          Secretary   brendacrossley49@gmail.com
Steve Cecil                    Newsletter  cecilbees121@gmail.com
Don Johnson                Board   homebrewtwo@gmail.com
Jim Kohl                        Board
Heather Oates               Board  hoates@gmail.com
Seth Smith.                   Board   seth_smith@live.com
Chris Zimmerman        Board  gocougs87@gmail.com
Matt and Nikki Jones   SVBA Equipment Managers  lamesican@gmail.com