website: columbiaareabeekeepers.com
CABA meetings are held on at St. Catherine Church in Columbia, Tennessee, at 6pm. The church is located at 3019 Cayce Lane.
There is adequate parking in the front of the church and entry is in the doors at the south end of the building on the lower level (next to the Maury County 911 center).
Please do not bring any food. Drinks are allowed and CABA will provide bottled water at no charge.
2023 MEETING AND MAJOR EVENTS SCHEDULE:
The meetings are held on the first Tuesday of each month (no July or December meetings). The meeting dates for 2023 are:
March 7
March 30 through April 2 Mule Day Week
April 4
May 2
June 6
August 1
September 5
October 3
November 7 (this may change as it is Election Day)
SEASONAL NOTES:
Early winter means the bees are clustering frequently when ambient temperature drop below 55 degrees F. Prolonged clustering can result in the depletion of food stores in the cluster area and a severe cold spell can produce a colony death due to starvation. We have enough warm intervals in December and January that something as simply as setting a community feeder outside with syrup will allow the foragers to put food back into the empty cells in the cluster area as well as moving food from the outer frames into that area. Pollen sub can be left outside 24/7. This can mean the survival of the colony this winter season until the first new sources of pollen and nectar come in February.
The late summer/fall season and an important phase of the beekeeping year. The hive populations are declining, honey harvests have been made, and the hive has excess room that attracts colony predators like wax moths and small hive beetles. Worse, hives untreated or improperly treated for varroa mites are developing very high mite to bee ratios that will cause the colony to abscond, so proper fall care will help pull it through the winter season and avoid spending big bucks for new bees next spring.
If you have 2 or more years under your belt as a beekeeper, you can probably help provide valuable information as a mentor to a new beekeeper and even do a site visit to give some hands on guidance.
LOCAL QUEEN, NUC, PACKAGE, + HIVE SOURCES:
These CABA members will be selling bees this spring:
Barry Brown nucs 931-626-6931
Ginnie Sweeney queens 615-474-9664
Craig Midgett nucs 615-585-3695
Tim McCandless nucs 931-797-5874
Bill Penney hives 931-683-1060
Chris Theiler packages 615-686-8251
Shelbi Heldman nucs queens 931-797-3801 heldmanfarms@gmail.com
MAJOR BEEKEEPING EQUIPMENT SUPPLIERS:
betterbee.com
mannlakeltd.com
dadant.com
gabees.com (Rossman Apiaries)
WEBSITES WORTH WATCHING:
These are YouTube sites followed by most local beekeepers. Even though some of them are established commercial beekeepers, the videos they make from their experiences make the topics understandable for all beekeepers.
Just go to the YouTube website and enter their name or site name in the search box:
Bob Binnie
Kamon Reynolds
Duck River Honey (Nathan Coleman)
FACEBOOK GROUPS: These are Facebook groups worth looking at also.
Columbia Area Beekeepers Association Beeks
Middle Tennessee Beekeepers
Tennessee Beekeepers
ITEMS FOR SALE:
Any CABA members who want to sell beekeeping items should email a list of the items to Dick Brickner at bricknerdn@charter.net. Provide an email address and phone number where prospective buyers may contact you. The list will be removed after 30 days.
HONEY EXTRACTING:
CABA has 2 honey extractors available for members to use. These are manual extractors that hold 3 deep, 3 medium, or 6 shallow frames and are furnished with a capping knife and scraper. We also have the capping tubs which will make the capping operation and honey recovery from the cappings convenient. The 200 micron and 600 micron filters are not furnished by CABA but can be purchased at cost of $7 from Dick Brickner.
The extractors should be returned as soon as possible after they have been picked up from either:
Wesley DuBois, at 884 Tom Osborn Road, 931-388-2475 (serving the north and east side of Columbia), or
Dick Brickner at 6518 Breckenridge Cove, 931-381-1187 (serving the south and west side).
CABA EMAIL:
Weekly hive updates are emailed to members and non-members and contain comments on what I am seeing in my hives as well as other timely information from other sources. If you wish to be added to the email list, notify me at bricknerdn@charter.net. Email is sent bcc: so the email list cannot be phished.
CABA DUES:
CABA dues for 2023 are still $10 per year per family and are pro-rated if you join later in the year.
BROODMINDER HIVE SCALES:
I have 3 hives with Broodminder scales in use. The scale data is now automatically updated hourly. I have found the scales provide timely information on hive activity during the spring and fall nectar flows as well as the fall and winter feeding periods.
You can access any of this data by going to the website beecounted.org When that webpage opens, click on the tab “View Map”. Then click on the page zoom button (the + sign) in the upper left hand corner until you see the icon located over Columbia. Click on the icon and it will list the 3 scales in my backyard apiary. Select one of the hives and click on it and the graph for the hive will open in a new window. You can open windows for all the hives. The window opens with a graph showing the last 90 days of data, and there is a box in the upper right corned you can open to change the timeline.
Hint: Once you get to this last page, if your web browser permits, you can bookmark this page as one of your favorites so you can access it anytime without going through all of the tedious steps in the above paragraph.
LOCAL APIARY TOURS:
If you would like to do a brief apiary tour and get some show and tell at my home apiary, please contact me at the address below. We should do this when the weather is suitable, preferably on a sunny, low wind day, in the early afternoon.
Dick Brickner
6518 Breckenridge Cove
Columbia, TN 38401
Phone: 931-381-1187
Email: bricknerdn@charter.net
BEE SWARMS and BEE REMOVAL:
Ginnie Sweeney coordinates swarm collecting. She may be reached at 615-474-9664.
Note: A bee swarm is a cluster of bees that have congregated on a tree branch, bush, fence, etc., and can be reached with a small ladder. The swarm has ‘parked’ at that site since the scout bees have not located a new permanent site yet. The swarm will usually move on the following day when that site has been located.
Beekeepers are asked to check out bee infestations that turn out to be yellow jackets, wasps, or other critters that we will not attempt to recover. Many beekeepers do not want to collect swarms that are not found in their apiary since a swarm from an unknown source can be a varroa mite bomb from a colony that has been poorly managed.
If bees have moved into a building wall or ceiling, the bees cannot be removed easily and may require some demolition of the structure to access them.
CABA has several members well experienced in removing bees from structures. There is a fee associated with removal of bees from structures. Please contact Ginnie Sweeney at the number listed above.
If you are qualified to do bee removals and want to be added to this list, please contact me.
MISCELLANEOUS BEE SUPPLIES:
The following item is available at the CABA meetings and my residence: I will be purchasing bulk quantities of items that are sold at slightly above cost to.
- Bayer Maxforce FC roach bait for small hive beetle control $12
- 200 micron and 600 micron polypropylene honey filters $7 each
- corrugated plastic closer boards (10 frame box size can be cut to fit 8 frame boxes) at $1.50
HONEY BOTTLING SUPPCNLIES:
Jason Dodson sells a large selection of glass and plastic containers for bottling honey. He is located at 2274 Nashville Highway in Columbia. Call Jason at 931-698-4959 to set up an appointment time to visit his warehouse.
CURRENT PRICE LIST – FEBRUARY 2023
HONEY JARS cap size CANNING JARS cap size
8 oz 24 count $16.15 48 mm 8 oz 12 count $5.15 70 G
1 lb 24 count $16.35 48 mm 12 oz 12 count $5.45 70 G
2 lb 12 count $13.15 63 mm 16 oz pint 12 count $5.75 70 G
32 oz quart 12 count $8.59 70 G
1/2 gallon count $8.33 83 mm
PLASTIC HONEY CAPS
8 oz 550 count $176.50 38 mm 38 mm yellow 1700 count $151.00
1 lb 321 count $140.00 38 mm 48 mm white 1400 count $168.00
2 lb 168 count $138.00 38 mm 70 G white or gold $188.50
12 oz bear 400 count $142.50 38 mm Tax not included