Congratulations, Mark!

Providence Journal, 2/21/11

Sunday, Feb 13 at 2:00 PM

Rocky Hill Grange

1340 South County Trail (Rte 2)

East Greenwich, RI

The speaker at the February meeting will be Jim Parr, a long-time and highly-respected Rhode Island beekeeper, whose topic will be "Feeding Honey Bees." His main focus will be on winter feeding, and among the things he will address will be the advantages and disadvantages of different types of feeders; the problems of using liquid feeders in winter; the benefits of candy feeding; the relative merits of using protein in candy versus pollen patties for early brood rearing; how to make and use pollen patties; and problems with early colony buildup.

Jim Parr began keeping bees when he was twelve years old (as a teenager he had sixteen hives) and in the 1980s kept up to 250 hives in 25 different bee yards in Newport County, Washington County and in Bristol County, Massachusetts.  For five years he provided up to 170 colonies a year to a 90-acre cranberry bog in Coventry.  He also traveled to New Zealand in 1984 and worked for two commercial beekeepers, one of them a 3,000-colony operation in the central highlands of South Island, where he was in charge of the extracting operation.  For many years he produced approximately 100 nucs annually.  He he also has taught hands-on beekeeping courses in conjunction with the Rhode Island Audubon Society.

Directions:

Take I-95 North or South to Exit 8

Make a right onto Rt-2 (Quaker Lane)

Go through the traffic lights at Division St., keeping the Walgreens to your left

The Grange is located just past the Walgreens on Rt-2

Please, download the article and enjoy. Sorry for the confusion.

Arnold Mills Community House

75 Hillside Road

Cumberland, RI

Speaker: Betty Menucci, “the Eastern Apicultural Society (EAS)” based on her experiences and education attending meetings  (see interview with Betty in this issue), including a video she made on the 2002 conference at Cornell University

Directions:

Sunday, December 12th at 2:00 PM

Rocky Hill Grange

1340 South County Trail

East Greenwich, RI

Program includes smoker lighting and frame building contests. Bring your smoker and secret fuel recipe and favorite hammer.  Lou will supply frame parts and nails; these frames will be auctioned off in April at the banquet.

Members can bring items to sell (as discussed at the October and November meetings), and fondant pieces will be available also as well as RIBA honey sticks.

 

Members are asked to bring an appetizer (last names beginning A-M) and a dessert (last names beginning N-Z)

Directions:

Take I-95 North or South to Exit 8

Make a right onto Rt-2 (Quaker Lane)

Go through the traffic lights at Division St., keeping the Walgreens to your left

The Grange is located just past the Walgreens on Rt-2

From: Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, RIBA Secretary

Re: Minutes of the November 14, 2010 monthly meeting of RIBA held at the Rocky Hill Grange

1. The meeting was convened at 2:15 PM with about 35 people in atendance. 

2. The Minutes of the October meeting were presented and accepted. The Fall Festival held at "The Pines" on October 17 and featuring guest speaker Dr.Nancy Ostiguy of Penn State University's Department of Entemology, and a fall craft raffle.  

3. No Old Business matters were raised.

4. New Business: Roger Robitaille spoke about the increasing cost of bee packages in advacne of spring order and that the local price of honey and comb honey has remained good at $7-9 per pound/ wholesale and more for retail. President Mark Robar remarked that 2010 was a good year for honey.

5. Suggestions from President Robar and from the floor included:

    a) Get well cards for Celeste Nordwany and John Hope, both of whom recently had surgery.

    b) coopoerating with Worcester Beekeeping Associaiton (WBA) to provide drawn comb on frames for new beekeepers next spring.

    c) Everett Zurlindin recommended that RIBA collaborate with WBA to bring Tom Seely, an excellent speaker who will be avialble in the area in 2011.

    d) Betty Menucci reported on the Bee Schools: continuing at Davies Technical Vocatinal School on Wednesday and the South County school would be on Tuesday nights. The cost to students is $50 and RIBA members might be able to audit depending upon space. She mentioned the possibility of an Intermediate School to take place at the end of the summer and recommended that members monitor the website for further details on all of these activities. 

    e) The idea of asking questions of more experienced beekeepers by new beekeepers was raised and newsletter editor Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban reported that an "Ask an Expert" column  in the Newsletter was beginning with the winter issue.

    f) recommendation that a mass quantity of Fondant be purchsed by RIBA in January for sale to members; Jeff McGuire offered a recipe and Everett pointed out that a recipe was printed in the last issue of the Newsletter.

   g) Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban presented information about a Ugandan Girls Training School initiative in Beekeeping as a form of microbusiness. Shd asked for any help from RIBA and Roger Robitaille offered spare bee veils as a donation. 

   h) there was a general discussion about ways and means to inprove communicaiton between RIBA officers and the membership and the president promised to take this up with the Board.

There was much discussion at the November meeting about feeding sugar and fondant throughout the winter.  The discussion reminded me about an article that was written about this very same topic last November.  I've made a copy from the newsletter, linked below.  You can make your own fondant as described in the article, or buy it already made from JAR Bakery Supply in Lincoln, RI.  Their address and phone number is in the reprinted newsletter. Thanks Carolyn for these wonderful newsletters!  It pays to save them!!

Fluffy Fondant.pdf

Sunday, November 14th at 2:00 PM

Rocky Hill Grange

1340 South County Trail

East Greenwich, RI

Program includes smoker lighting and frame building contests.

(Please let us know if you are interested in a honey baking contest. Send an email to beekeeper at the domain hosting this site - ribeekeeper.com. If there is enough interest, baking can be added. )

Directions:

Take I-95 North or South to Exit 8

Make a right onto Rt-2 (Quaker Lane)

Go through the traffic lights at Division St., keeping the Walgreens to your left

The Grange is located just past the Walgreens on Rt-2