AMBA Meeting 3-14-08

At out meeting we watched the short DVD "Sister Bee". See www.sisterbee.com for details. Its a beautiful documentary of some women beekeepers and their experiences. After pizza, we then had a discussion of value added products and how some AMBA members are packaging and selling their products. Ruth Martin showed some of her products and packaging and related how well some of the eye catching tags and labels help display the products. Ben Cooper then discussed some of his molded figurines. The main point is that the value of the honey or beeswax in the product is minimal, but the value of the product produced is very high and can command much higher sales prices. One example Steve mentioned were the products from Stoneleigh Farms (www.stoneleighfarms.com) and included lavender honey soap and shampoo. Other members had some experience which they mentioned. For ex, Harry Mallow mentioned that a vendor had not sold much of his honey but when the honey bear was dressed up with abit of ribbon, it started selling very fast. We held a raffle and prizes were awarded. Richard Cutter brought in a super, Ruth Martin brought in eggs, and Ben Cooper brought in a large quantity of molds. The gifts donated are much appreciated. A 50-50 drawing was also made and the prize was $55 or so.

AMBA Meeting - Feb 8, 2008

At our February meeting, Jonathan Showalter of Beeline Apiaries and Woodenware gave a presentation to the club about his wooden ware factory. The factory has just been in production a few weeks at the new location which is just North of Rainsburg, PA Club members, especially the wood workers, were interested in the production methods and tooling used to create beehive parts and supplies.

January 11,2008 AMBA Meeting - Slideshow

Harry Mallow's Observation Hives

At our January meeting Harry Mallow kindly brought in two observation hives for display and discussion at the meeting. He was excited to share the fact that the queen had already started laying brood. Harry stated that this was the first time he had observation hives going in January. He'll give us additional detail later but the recent 70 degree weather has obviously energized the queen. Walter had his camera at the meeting and we captured a few very nice photos of Harry and the hives he brought in to the meeting. Thank you Harry. It was exciting for all of us to see active bees in the middle of winter!

AMBA January 11,2008 meeting

The first meeting of 2008 of the ALLEGHENY MOUNTAIN BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION was called to order by Steve Martin. The minutes and treasures report were given by Mike Burkett. The meeting quickly turned into a demonstration by Steve Martin of the new website as Steve drove us through all the amenities of this new and useful site. It is apparent early on of the time and effort that has been done on this site to make it user friendly and also to serve our members. It is a much appreciated job that Steve has done. Later we turned our attention to some very nice refreshments and then the meeting resumed with talk about a summer field day, June 21,2008 at Camp Hickory to be shared with Hampshire and Garrett County bee clubs. Expect to hear more on this as we get closer to that date . Many thanks to Hop Cassidy from Garrett County and Harry Mallow for their input and suggestions on this upcoming event.
One of the highlights of the meeting were 2 observation bee hives brought in by Harry Mallow. The queen in one of these was laying eggs as the meeting transpired. This really is quite uncommon for our area to witness this in January. Normally we expect queens to start laying a small brood pattern in January and continue laying as pollen becomes available from maple tree buds, but we have never seen this in a observation hive this early in the year! The significance of this is that we can raise our queens this time of year and not have to buy queens from the southern part of the United States.We will be able to do this and trade queens with other members to maintain some bio-diversity in our bees and only use the queens from hives who show the characteristics we want,docile bees with good housekeeping traits . This is exciting as we have been preaching to our members to try this technique of raising queens. More on this later as we will interview Harry Mallow to find out exactly what he did to manage this.

Walt Shreve

Final Meeting of 2007 - December

On Friday December 14, our last meeting of the year was held and it was a joyous occasion. The meeting was called to order by Walt Shreve and the minutes and treasurers report were given by Mike Burkett. Richard Cutter was honored as Beekeeper or the Year 2007 for all the good work and generous gifts he has given to club members as drawing winners. Charlotte Folk and her daughter performed a skit and it was very humerous and was enjoyed by all present. We sang several Christmas songs and had refreshments. Our new club officers for 2008 were introduced and they are as follows: Steve Martin -President, Fred Litton-Vice President and Mike Burkett as Secretary- Treasurer. Walt Shreve 12/16/2007

2007 Beekeeper of the Year

At the final meeting of 2007, the Allegheny Mountain Beekeepers Association awarded Richard Cutter the selection as the 2007 Beekeeper of the Year. This is a new award and it will be awarded each year in December. Richard has been a long standing AMBA member and club officer and has graciously done a lot to support the club in 2007. He supplied many door prizes for the club including nucs and hives. These are great prizes and really increase the raffle activity at our meetings. So congratulations to Richard on being awarded the 2007 Beekeeper of the Year. Each year the name of the current year's winner will be added to the plaque.