Post by labrat on Feb 13, 2006 10:48:32 GMT -5
I don't know where this should be posted since there is not a beekeeping forum, I thought homesteading & self-sufficiency would be appropriate. Anyway, I saw this article in the Lexington Herald Leader Saturday and thought I should pass it on. I don’t have time to attend but there may be others who are able. While this info is valuable, more so is the workshop mentioned within the article. Info on the workshop was placed within the article Saturday, however, no so in this reprint. I did find that at another link.
www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/living/home/13826934.htm
www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/living/home/13826931.htm
www.kyagr.com/state_vet/bees/index.htm
There is also a workshop coming up in Indiana and Ohio soon.
Busy, busy beekeepers
One-day program introduces basics
By Andy Mead
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Sometimes, it's OK to think inside the box.
Especially if the box is a beehive.
For anyone thinking of obtaining 50,000 head of tiny livestock, the Bluegrass Beekeeping School is a good place to start.
There will be sessions for beginners and for experienced beekeepers.
There will be a trade show, too, that will include some of the wares offered by the Walter T. Kelley Co. of Clarkson in Grayson County, one of the nation's largest beekeeping supply houses.
This is the third year for the school. Because it has attracted capacity crowds each year, Marriott Griffin's Gate Resort in Lexington is its third and largest location.
Beekeeping might appear simple at first glance, but there is a lot to learn, said Phil Craft, the state apiarist, or beekeeper, for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
"It's a different kind of animal husbandry than anything else -- you're trying to manage and keep alive an insect," he said.
Honeybees make honey, and that's probably why most people start keeping bees. Getting started with a new hive, chemical treatments, bees and a veil, gloves and other equipment, costs less than $300.
Bees also play an important role in agriculture. The pollination they accomplish while moving from flower to flower is essential for some crops and greatly increases yields in others.
Tom Webster, a Kentucky State University bee researcher, says honeybees are responsible for $14 billion in agricultural products each year.
Now is a good time to get into bees.
Kentucky honeybees are making a comeback from what Craft calls the "double whammy" of parasites that hit them hard in the 1990s.
The culprits were tiny varroa mites and even smaller tracheal mites (a group of the tracheal mites could gather in the period at the end of this sentence).
They sucked the breath and blood from the hard-working honeybees.
More than half the state's bees were lost; feral bees that make their hives in hollow trees were virtually wiped out.
Now beekeepers are managing the mites better, Craft said, and honeybees are being bred for resistance.
Enough swarms from managed hives are escaping into the woods that "bee trees" are showing up again.
Honeybees are increasingly in demand because they are vital to the expanding California almond industry, Webster said.
February is pollination time for almond blossoms. As many as half the nation's 2.5 million hives have been sent to the almond orchards so the bees can do their thing.
The demand is pushing pollination fees as high as $135 a hive, Webster said. In some cases, Florida beekeepers are bypassing local watermelon-pollination contracts to send their bees to California.
The price of honey also is up; Webster said he's seen it going for $5 to $8 a pound. (Local honey often brings more because of the widely held notion -- Webster said he's never seen a scientific study on the subject -- that it helps with allergies, inoculating a human with the pollen that's bothering him or her.)
In Kentucky, bees pollinate apples, raspberries, blackberries, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins and other crops.
Bees are becoming increasingly important in the state as farmers who have grown tobacco all their lives move to food crops.
The beekeeping industry in Kentucky is relatively small.
Craft, who has been in the apiarist job since 1999, estimates there are at least 3,000 beekeepers in the state, maybe as many as 5,000.
It's mostly a rural activity, he said, but there usually are enough flowers in towns and suburbs to keep a hive happy.
www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/living/home/13826934.htm
www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/living/home/13826931.htm
www.kyagr.com/state_vet/bees/index.htm
There is also a workshop coming up in Indiana and Ohio soon.
Busy, busy beekeepers
One-day program introduces basics
By Andy Mead
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Sometimes, it's OK to think inside the box.
Especially if the box is a beehive.
For anyone thinking of obtaining 50,000 head of tiny livestock, the Bluegrass Beekeeping School is a good place to start.
There will be sessions for beginners and for experienced beekeepers.
There will be a trade show, too, that will include some of the wares offered by the Walter T. Kelley Co. of Clarkson in Grayson County, one of the nation's largest beekeeping supply houses.
This is the third year for the school. Because it has attracted capacity crowds each year, Marriott Griffin's Gate Resort in Lexington is its third and largest location.
Beekeeping might appear simple at first glance, but there is a lot to learn, said Phil Craft, the state apiarist, or beekeeper, for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
"It's a different kind of animal husbandry than anything else -- you're trying to manage and keep alive an insect," he said.
Honeybees make honey, and that's probably why most people start keeping bees. Getting started with a new hive, chemical treatments, bees and a veil, gloves and other equipment, costs less than $300.
Bees also play an important role in agriculture. The pollination they accomplish while moving from flower to flower is essential for some crops and greatly increases yields in others.
Tom Webster, a Kentucky State University bee researcher, says honeybees are responsible for $14 billion in agricultural products each year.
Now is a good time to get into bees.
Kentucky honeybees are making a comeback from what Craft calls the "double whammy" of parasites that hit them hard in the 1990s.
The culprits were tiny varroa mites and even smaller tracheal mites (a group of the tracheal mites could gather in the period at the end of this sentence).
They sucked the breath and blood from the hard-working honeybees.
More than half the state's bees were lost; feral bees that make their hives in hollow trees were virtually wiped out.
Now beekeepers are managing the mites better, Craft said, and honeybees are being bred for resistance.
Enough swarms from managed hives are escaping into the woods that "bee trees" are showing up again.
Honeybees are increasingly in demand because they are vital to the expanding California almond industry, Webster said.
February is pollination time for almond blossoms. As many as half the nation's 2.5 million hives have been sent to the almond orchards so the bees can do their thing.
The demand is pushing pollination fees as high as $135 a hive, Webster said. In some cases, Florida beekeepers are bypassing local watermelon-pollination contracts to send their bees to California.
The price of honey also is up; Webster said he's seen it going for $5 to $8 a pound. (Local honey often brings more because of the widely held notion -- Webster said he's never seen a scientific study on the subject -- that it helps with allergies, inoculating a human with the pollen that's bothering him or her.)
In Kentucky, bees pollinate apples, raspberries, blackberries, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins and other crops.
Bees are becoming increasingly important in the state as farmers who have grown tobacco all their lives move to food crops.
The beekeeping industry in Kentucky is relatively small.
Craft, who has been in the apiarist job since 1999, estimates there are at least 3,000 beekeepers in the state, maybe as many as 5,000.
It's mostly a rural activity, he said, but there usually are enough flowers in towns and suburbs to keep a hive happy.
