Meetings
Important Note: The September 1st meeting is being held at a different location and a different time! It will be held at the Mesquite Public Library at 2600 Oates Drive, Mesquite, Texas from 6:30pm until 8:00pm. (If you use Google maps, make sure you type in Mesquite and not Dallas for the city as you will get the wrong location.)
The TVBA meets the first Wednesday of each month.
Meetings are open to everyone, so please come and join us.
Time: |
7 - 9 PM |
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Date: |
First Wednesday of each month |
Where: |
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Parking: |
Availble free on campus. |
Past Meetings
July 2010
Kim Schofield from Texas AgriLife discussed bee pest detection, identification and treatment.
June 2010
Mike Merchant from Texas AgriLife discussed various stinging insects from the North Texas area.
May 2010
James Wagner, former pastry chef at the Mansion on Turtle Creek shared his expertise in cooking with honey.
April 2010
Brett Dyer of Texas Wax Dallas spoke on Encaustic Painting.
March 2010
Christi Baughman spoke on Bee Plants.
February 2010
We had a panel discussion on Spring Hive Maintenance with Jim Anderson (VP of the Collin County Club), Horatio Acevedo and Alan Eynon. It was a good discussion with a variety of viewpoints and suggestions.
January 2010
Alan led a discussion of the beekeeping ordinances for various municipalities in the DFW area.
December 2009
Holiday Party
November 2009
No meeting - Intro to Beekeeping Seminar
October 2009
Mark Volpi shared his experiences and research into bee allergies.
September 2009
Alan Eynon discussed some topics from current honeybee research.
August 2009
The August meeting provided us with a double treat. Nicole Pettibon, the Texas Honey Queen spoke about her experiences with beekeeping and encouraged us all to participate in the State Fair Booth and the annual TBA convention in Tyler.
Then Janet Rowe, The Bee Charmer, gave an enlightening talk on the many legal issues involved in selling honey. Gallery Photos
July 2009
In July our own Jan Earts gave a fascinating talk on how to melt and clean your beeswax as well as showing many examples of beeswax products. Various wax melters were on display. Gallery Photos
June 2009
The June meeting was all about harvesting your honey. Christi and Jan discussed techniques for honey extraction, a "youtube" video was displayed showing the steps involved and Lara made a presentation on bottle choices and consumer preferences.
May 2009
The topic for May was "A Brief Introduction to Beekeeping". Lara Guerra gave a short presentation on bees, Alan Eynon discussed bee diseases and Jan Earts and Christi Baughman demonstrate various bee suits and veils. We had examples of woodenware and beekeeping tools as well as stacks of catalogs from the various bee supply vendors.
April 2009
Christi Baughman discussed tips and techniques for making hive splits.March 2009
Dick Counts, Executive Director and Reporter for the East Texas Beekeepers Association presented excellent information on spring hive management.
February 2009
Jan Aerts gave a highly informative talk on woodenware. He brought many examples - both good and bad - and even a skep from Belgium. Check out photos from the meeting.
January 2009
CA Hiscock, a Dallas Master Gardener gave a wonderful talk on good native plants for our bees as well as tips on soil preparation.
October 2008
Angela Scheuerle, Alan's wife, outlined the various items you can create with your beeswax. She provided recipes and free samples of lotion bars to everyone there.
May 2008
We discussed our experiences at the Dallas Zoo Earth Day event and the Oak Cliff Earth Day festival as well as other suggestions for participating more in the community. We also discussed swarming - what to look for, how to catch them.
April 2008
John Caldeira gave not one, but two very interesting presentations. His main talk highlighted his experiences travelling eastern Europe on behalf of the US Agency for International Development, sharing his beekeeping and marketing skills with beekeepers in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. Bees have been kept in this part of the world for thousands of years, but with much greater diversity (or, less standardization) in how it's done, compared to here in the US.
John also gave a short talk about designing and installing observation hives, including many public facilities - such as the observation hive in the Bug House at the Dallas Zoo.
You can find information about John's activities at his website outdoorplace.org.
John brought along Robert Hutchinson, and they both shared many stories and observations about beekeeping, and the old Trinity Valley club here in Dallas.
March 5, 2008
We had a great meeting. The bee videos are just campy enough to be funny without intending to. We went through the whole process of setting up a hive and getting the bees installed - a process that starts in earnest next month!
February 6, 2008
We had a great meeting tonight. Thanks to everyone who attended, and special
thanks to Blake Shook for his beautiful presentation on how he got into beekeeping
(growing from one hive to 250 in four years!) and the intricacies of raising queens.
Blake's taking orders for April, and you can reach him at desertcreekhoney@nww.net
(his web site is www.desertcreekhoney.com) or by phone at 214-886-6899.
I made a few copies of the "Fat Bees" article from the Am. Bee Journal. This is all
about the importance of protein in the bee diet, particularly at times (like now) when they're
raising baby bees but have very little pollen coming in. I also shared a few samples of
Mega Bee (the new pollen substitute from the Tucson Bee Lab), as my bees seem to
be taking it well, and hopefully we'll see some positive results.
Don't forget to use the sun to your advantage when removing equipment from the
hives. It's tempting to put things away immediately (get that job done!) but I've found
that it helps to prop things up against the wall for a week or two, and let the sun drive
out any pests/parasites/critters before putting it away. Best of all, it's free!
January 2, 2008
Jan gave a highly informative and humorous talk describing his bee removal experiences, including a demonstration of his "bee vac" and special-purpose tools such as a 6-foot hive tool! We were all wrapped up in the discussion, and never even got to the introduction to beekeeping videotapes - which we will start next month. Check out photos in the gallery.
December 5, 2007
Kudos to the Dadant folks in Paris, who graciously provided some of our door prizes, including their new beekeeping book, and a year's subscription to the American Bee Journal.
Swarming: Alan gave a brief talk about bee swarming, based on a 20 year old article from Scientific American, discussing how bees evaluate prospective new hives, and what qualities make them most attractive. "One thing I had not realized is that the scout bees have a special dance they use to tell their swarm mates about where the new hive is - similar to the dance they use when collecting nectar," reported Alan.
Bottom Boards: There was a discussion about screened bottom boards. Although Alan indicated he always rotated his hives back to solid bottoms for the winter, there is a growing opinion that that's unnecessary. Bees tolerate the cold as long as they have a sufficient food supply. Also, varroa mites are hit particularly hard by leaving the screen in place over the winter; the mites have nowhere to reproduce (since there's no brood), and as they continue to drop out of the hive, their total population falls off.
Hive Tool Care: Alan gave a little demonstration of how to use household 3-in-1 oil to clean your hive tool. Martha Stewart would have been proud.
Gayla talked about the laying worker in her hive, and how she got the hive back to a healthy, queenright state.
Allison Adams, one of the two Collin County Honey Princesses, gave a wonderful presentation about the Collin County bee scholarship program, her experiences learning how to keep bees, and how she's harvested bee swarms to increase her apiary to three hives. If you're interested in the Collin County programs, you can visit the Collin County Hobby Beekeepers website.
Ted Vance, the president of the Texas Beekeepers Association, came to the meeting. We have a great opportunity until the end of the year to donate to the bee lab at Texas A&M: all money donated will be matched 4x (quadrupled). Ted also talked a little about the Texas Beekeepers Association itself, and the benefits of knowing our fellow state beekeeepers and researchers.
Blake Shook also stopped in. Blake's raising queens right here in north Texas, and said interested folks should call him at the end of February to place orders. Blake will be back in February to tell us more about his operation.
Gary mentioned that he'd found a termite treatment that could have nasty effects on bees. Since we have several folks in the group who are experts on this topic, it's a possible future topic for discussion.
Jan shared an excellent batch of persimmon fruits from his tree.