The Stinger — October 2024

Table of Contents

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Letter from the President

Good luck to us all in getting our bees ready for winter and remember what you do now will determine how vibrant your bees will be next spring. Much the same as we here in the ABA are already planning for the upcoming year.

Hal Hendrix
President ABA

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Letter From the Vice President

YALL BEE BLESSED
ALLYSON ANDREWS 

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Letter from the Secretary

Heart of the Hive: Inside the Mind of the Honey Bee, by Hilary Kearney

Hilary Kearney wrote my favorite bee book of all, Queenspotting. If you aren’t familiar with it, you’re in for a treat—you should check it out! She also has a great Instagram channel, @girlnextdoorhoney . When I saw that her new book was coming out, I ordered a signed copy directly from her website.

In Heart of the Hive, Kearney focuses on the idea of a bee colony as a superorganism. She uses the metaphor of a human body to describe the elements of a hive; for example, the comb is the body, the worker bees are the blood, the queen is the life force, and so on. She describes the life cycle of honeybees, the anatomy, communication, and behavior of bees in a very friendly and readable way. Honeybees are amazing and fascinating, and Kearney really captures that mystique in this book. If I didn’t know that what she describes is actually true, it might seem magical.

In addition to the well-written information about honeybees, there are fantastic photographs. The photographer, Eric Tourneret, captured some stunning moments, like drones pursuing and mating a queen, close-up photos of bees in the hive, and bees out in the world doing their jobs.

Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners: 20 Mysteries of Honey Bee Behavior Solved, by Thomas D. Seeley

I heard Thomas Seeley talk about this book on a Two Bees in a Podcast episode, (episode 175) and immediately ordered it. In this book he tells stories of mysteries about bee behavior that he has investigated and solved over his lifetime as a beekeeper.

I have not yet read all of this book, but it’s in my stack, and it would make a great addition to any beekeeper’s library.

Both of these books are lovely hardcovers, and would be great Christmas gifts for your favorite beekeepers or door prizes for your club

Amy Seiber, ABA Secretary

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Beekeeper of the Year

Service to Alabama beekeepers

• Served with Dr. Jim Tew on the advisory board that organized the first Auburn University Beekeeping Symposium. Speaker at that symposium on several occasions.
• Served on the Alabama Beekeepers Association board of directors for four years.
• Member of the Alabama Farmers Federation (ALFA) Bee and Honey Committee for three years.
  Service to local beekeeping community
• Member of Jefferson County Beekeepers Association (JCBA) for over 30 years, president for two terms. Awarded Lifetime Membership for longstanding service to the club.
• Organized and managed package bee sales for his local bee club for seven years, obtaining and transporting as many as 200 packages for purchase, providing hundreds of new members with the opportunity to start keeping bees.
• Participated in the JCBA Beginners Beekeeping Course for more than 20 years, where he has tirelessly promoted and demonstrated good beekeeping practices, director of this program for three years. Personally mentored more than 50 new beekeepers, one of whom achieved certification as a Master Beekeeper by the Eastern Apicultural Society and now operates a beekeeping supply store. Another of his students went on to become certified by the Young Harris/University of Georgia Beekeeping Institute as a Master Craftsman Beekeeper, one of the
  most rigorous beekeeping certifications in the United States.
• Organized and co-directed the JCBA Hands-On Queening Rearing Program.
• Certified as a Master Gardener by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System; used this affiliation to speak to garden clubs throughout central Alabama to explain the value of honeybees in our lives and to maintain the good public image of beekeeping in our community.
  Research activities and publications
• Developed a convenient method for queen introduction. Steinkampf MP, Hurst JC. “Front Door Queen Introduction”, Bee Culture, February 2011.
• Steinkampf MP, Hurst JC, Tew J E. “Effect of Thermochromic Hive Coatings on Honeybee Health and Productivity”, American Bee Journal, March 2013. Co-investigator (sponsor: National Honey Board).
• NASA HoneybeeNet scale hive network. Co-investigator.
• Effectiveness of Extended-Release Oxalic Acid for Varroa Treatment. Co-investigator.
  (sponsor: Auburn University).

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ABA Merchandise Announcement

You may or not know that I took over the merchandise part of the ABA Fall Conference. I love to organize and sell things so I figured this was a good fit for me. I think the officers and other board members were glad not to have to partake in this job.

I hope you all liked the ABA T-shirt we put together for the 2024 conference. The addition of sponsors was new this year and I think it greatly enhanced our shirts & our program. The idea came to me while I was folding clothes. I grabbed an old race t-shirt from when I used to run 10Ks, saw the sponsors for that race listed on the back and the lightbulb went off, so to speak.

We sold 82% of the green T-shirts alone! I think this was a great success. My plan moving forward is to have more and more sponsors added each year. It is important to all our officers and the board to be fiscally prudent with your membership money. We would love to offer you all sorts of goodies for free but we have a tight budget and try our very hardest to stick to it. As an example, with the addition of more sponsors, we could consider adding small things like bags for all your materials at registration.

I know this was one thing that was asked for many times. So, if your business or someone you know would like to be a sponsor for our 2025 conference please reach out to me at Merchandise@alabamabeekeepers.com.

Sponsorship levels are as follows:

Gold – $500 Top sponsor billing on the back of our conference T-shirt. Your advertising in the back of our conference program, including any additional marketing materials you provide as a handout with our program.
Silver – $250 Second line billing on the back of our conference T-shirt. (a smaller than the Gold level but bigger than the Bronze level sized logo.) Your advertising in the back of our conference program, including any additional marketing materials you provide as a handout with our program.
Bronze – $100 Third line billing on the conference T-shirt (a smaller than Silver sized logo at the bottom of all the sponsors) Your logo in the back of our conference program.

Please remember to reach out to the 2024 sponsors and thank them for their support. Without them, much of what we were able to do this year would not have happened.

www.alfafarmers.org
www.foxhoundbeecompany.com
https://beeinsure.citadelus.com
www.westalabamabeecompany.com
Midsouth Bee Supply Montgomery, AL (on Facebook)

Have a great Fall!
Kate Pugh

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Tales from the Honey House

A Mostly True Story

I’ve been a beekeeper for about 15 years now, and occasionally, things can get a little sticky, shall we say. But I have never had them get as sticky as they did a few months ago.

A customer wanted a few cases of honey, so I was working away, happily bottling it up. Things were going great till a piece of crystallized honey got stuck in the drain valve. It’s annoying, but it’s happened before. I took out my trusty heat gun and tried to warm things up to finish the job. I wasn’t having any luck, so when the phone rang, I stepped outside to take it like I always do. The building has a metal roof so reception inside is a bear.

That was my first mistake.

As soon as I stepped back into my bottling room, I knew I was in trouble. That piece of crystallized honey had decided to come loose while I was on the phone and my concrete floor was covered in about an inch of honey. I was 8 feet away from the bottling tank and that valve was running just fine. There had to be 30 gallons on the floor and more just kept pouring out. As quick as these old legs could go, I bolted across the room to close that valve. 

That was my second mistake.

Before I could get to the valve, my feet slipped out from under me. I slid under the workbench on my back as slick as any baseball player ever slid into home (but with a lot less cheering). I now had honey in places honey wasn’t meant to go. My shirt had honey on it. My pants had honey on them. My poor cell phone landed face down in the mess, and my hair, well, let’s just say I would not recommend honey as a shampoo. 

I was a slick, sticky mess. I wasn’t about to trust my legs again and got on my hands and knees to crawl to the bottling tank and close that valve. 

And then I had to find a way to escape my human-sized sticky trap. Somehow I made it out of the room without breaking anything, and headed straight back to the house, yelling for my wife the whole way.

My ever-patient wife met me at the back door and promptly denied me entry. I guess having a honey-soaked man walking across her carpet wasn’t something she wanted to deal with. Can’t say I blame her. So right there in front of her and God Almighty, she made me strip down to my skivvies to hose me off. 

That was my third mistake.

It wasn’t just that the water was COLD. (Boy, was it ever.) It was that we weren’t thinking about anything except getting rid of the sticky mess that had now made its way into additional unnamed places. We certainly weren’t thinking about the Vietnamese travel nurse who was staying in the guest house. 

Naturally, she came around the corner to see what all the commotion was. Poor girl got quite the eyeful… and the wrong idea about our hygiene practices. “OH! I didn’t know Americans bathed outside!” as she scurried away.

The day was clearly not going according to plan, but at least I was almost clean enough to go inside, take a warm shower and get into clean clothes that I desperately wanted by then. Or so I thought. 

It was at this point that the ambulance showed up.

Apparently, my “too smart for my own good” watch had recorded the fall. That’s the problem with technology for us senior citizens. I had taken it off and laid it beside the phone on the way to the house and never thought to tell it I was ok. It had concluded that I was unconscious and alerted the rescue squad who arrived just in time to catch the end of the show. 

There’s no upside to losing 30 gallons of honey but I do have to give credit to my bees who cleaned the phone and watch off really well. Both still worked when everything was said and done. 

Author Redacted to Protect the Guilty/ Story Edited by CK Cowherd

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A Big THANK YOU!

Shown above is Gracie McCready, recipient of the 2024 Young Beekeeper Scholarship with her sponsors represented by the ads below. Gracie is at the start of her two year scholarship program and will be mentored by two experienced beekeepers from her local club.

Several other beekeeping suppliers have expressed interest in helping with next year’s scholarship. If your organization or company is interested in helping the next generation of beekeepers get off to a good start, please email stinger.editor@gmail.com.

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Department of Agriculture Reminder

Please remember to register your colonies. We DO NOT share your information with anyone or any agency! Registration is primarily for disease outbreak containment and for monitoring African Honey Bees. If we find AHB or American Foulbrood in a location then we can alert and locate beekeepers to meet with them to test their bees and monitor hives for aggression.  We are not in the business to tell you how to manage your apiary. If you have any unusually aggressive colonies that remain that way next spring then contact us so we can test them for AHB. Please do monitor varroa and especially after treatment. If you have questions or need to schedule a time for us to inspect your colonies, contact us 

Phillip Carter, Apiary Inspector
Plant Protection Division
AL Dept of Agriculture and Industries
1445 Federal Drive
Montgomery, AL 36107-1123
334 414-1666

phillip.carter@agi.alabama.gov

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This and That

Cell Punch Queen Rearing: Rear queens using the cell punch method. Kit with complete instructions including photographs using the tool. Kit includes several items to get started plus a tool that is hand fabricated from raw materials. Send $20 plus $4.50 dollars for shipping to: Wil Montgomery, 1401 Lakemont Dr. South, Southside, AL 35907

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Instructions:
Mix peanut butter and coconut oil together and melt in microwave for 30-45 secs.
Add the next 7 ingredients and mix well. Add chocolate chips.
Put parchment paper in an 8×8 pan.
Pour mixture on the parchment paper, spreading evenly.
Place the pan in the freezer for an hour.
Remove the pan and remove parchment paper with your energy bar block onto a cutting board.
Cut energy bars into bite size squares. Store in an airtight container in the freezer.
Enjoy as a quick snack!
Possible Substitutions:
Maple syrup for honey
Collagen powder for protein powder
Try adding pepitas (pumpkin seeds) or any other chopped nut you enjoy. I also sometimes add
raisins or other chopped up dry fruit.
Make these however you like them. Experiment all you want.

Recipe and Image credit to Kate Pugh

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What do you think? We’re always open to improving the Stinger and as always, your thoughts, ideas, photos and submissions are welcome. Please send to stinger.editor@gmail.com. Bee Blessed!