Minutes from April 13th, 2026

 

--President Joseph Klingelhutz began the meeting by introducing the club officers. Kathy Davis filled in for Diane Kulhman today as treasurer.

-- New members/visitors were recognized and introduced. Welcome!!

--Treasurer’s report: We have a balance currently of $2,499.07. Joseph reminded members that dues help pay for speakers, events such as our summer field day and other expenses. Kathy passed around the membership list for people to add phone numbers (optional) and for new members to add their contact information.

--Consideration of club secretary: At the February meeting, we did not elect a new secretary to replace Rachel Vakulich, whose schedule now prevents her from being able to attend meetings. A huge thank you to Rachel who has served as secretary and, prior to that, was our representative to the Iowa Honey Producers Association, where she also served a term as Honey Queen.

Joseph introduced a recommendation to look into purchasing a quality microphone system that would help with taking minutes. With no objection, this will be researched. A suggestion was made that meetings could be recorded and put online. Having meetings shown on a platform like Zoom was also suggested. Jim Davis has agreed to take the position of secretary.

--June Field Day: We will be holding a field day on June 13^th, from 10 am to noon. This will be held at the Davis residence, 3326 Ridgewood Country Court NE, North Liberty. There will not be a rain date, so we will hold the event as long as there is no severe weather. Sean Webb suggested this be considered an “and one” event, where members are encouraged to bring friends/relatives who might be interested in learning about bees. Please try to bring a lawn chair.

Joseph listed several activities we could do that would include a discussion by him of queen grafting, doing mite checks, making a general hive inspection and doing an oxalic acid vapor treatment. Randy Hahn suggested also a demo of how to properly clean the equipment for OA vapor. Linda Lee suggested learning how to safely and effectively capture and mark queens. Craig Aldrich suggested that as well as learning about how to do grafting we also have a talk about methods of raising one’s queens without grafting.

Joseph also asked about a possible speaker and suggested checking with Ellen Bell, one of the prominent queen raisers in the state. Adam Ebert was also suggested as a speaker. He indicated he will look into some food possibilities. We will also be holding a silent auction of beekeeping equipment, new and used, that has been donated, with all proceeds going to the club. A list of items to be auctioned will be sent out with the field day notice. Bring your $$$. There will be some very good deals to have.

--Joseph reminded the group about our mentoring program. People can sign up on our web page to either be a mentor or to request one.

--Swarming and splits: Weather has been up and down, and dry as well as rainy. Joseph commented that hives that are still running light might need to be fed since the rain tends to wash the pollen off the blossoms. People for the most part have not been seeing swarm cells yet, mostly empty queen cups but that can change rapidly so hives need to be monitored. Rick Haines did find a number of queen cells and so was able to replace several dead-outs. Double screen boards are very useful at this time to help keep splits warm, he said. Will said he did a split as well and feels there should be enough drones by the time the queen emerges. There will be a modification to the Trading Post page on our web site so members can list things like queens or queen cells they have to offer to other members.

Don Kirchner, whose hive are in southern Iowa, has made splits after finding two small queen cells. He also found, the hard way, that the elastic on the bottom of his bee jacket has loosened up.

Randy Hahn had good success with his condensing hives and all 6 made it through the winter. As he explained, a condensing hive has no upper entrance, is heavy on top insulation and light on the sides, so moisture condenses on the side of the colony and doesn’t rain down on the bees and then the bees have that moisture available to them.

Will Swain demonstrated his swarm trap. It is deeper than a frame based on research by bee biologist Tom Seeley, who says bees look for a certain volume of space when seeking out a new home after a swarm. Will uses old frames, which the bees prefer, but also some that need to be drawn out since bees gorge themselves before swarming so they have the energy and resources to draw out a lot of comb. For a bait, there are a number of products available to put in the swarm trap but lemongrass oil is a powerful attractant, if used very sparingly, like a drop or two on a q-tip, and is inexpensive. Though some say 15 feet is about ideal placement, bees will move into a trap much lower and more easily accessed by the beekeeper.

To capture a swarm, Shawn Webb suggested using a wire mesh basket. Bees tend to stay in that type of basket rather than try to fly out. Bob Wolff talked about getting a swarm flight to drop down from the air can be accomplished by banging on pans.

Will suggested moving the swarm from the trap into a hive body a day or two after. Because of the extra space below the frames one doesn’t want the bees to go crazy building comb. However, it will help the bees stay put if the queen has begun laying on the frames. Tom Long recommends the book Honeybee Democracy, by Tom Seeley, for information about swarming behavior.

Joseph mentioned that the next few weeks we will be seeing more queen cells, and that if you see a capped queen cell, the swarm will likely occur within a day or two.

The following are random points about swarms and splits: (Apologies for not crediting each commentor).

: If requeening in less than 60 degrees, it can be done but be sure the queen doesn’t get chilled before that.

: Swarms and splits provide good brood breaks which can help keep mite populations low.

: Swarm cells found? Move the queen to another box. Then what to do with multiple swarm cells? Start nucs, share with someone who needs a queen, or kill all but a couple.

: Need to kill some queens? Throw them into alcohol and pull them out later to put in swarm traps as an attractant.

: If you can’t find the queen when you try to split, put a queen excluder between the brood boxes and check in a couple days for eggs to see which box she is in.

:Nucs don’t have to be 5 frame. Add a swarm cell or two, a frame of brood and one of resources. You can make a lot of splits that way.

: Tom Long is planning to try Norroa for mite treatment, a new option. Hopefully he can report back on success.

: There is a tool available for doing oxalic acid dribble that measures out the proper amount so you don’t have to guess if you’re putting the correct amount between frames.

: Lay oxalic acid strips like varroxan across the top of the frames rather than down in the frames to get more bee contact.

: Tom Long recommends The Honey Bee Solution to Varroa by Steve Riley, about a group in England that worked on developing local, mite resistant bees.

: Craig Aldrich would like to see some of us work on using a software product that would facilitate communication among club members.

Joseph concluded the meeting at 8 pm. Thanks as always to Urban Acres Realty and Rob McCain for hosting our meetings.

Please email any comments or corrections to Jim Davis (jim.nwjh@gmail.com)

http://eastcentraliowabeekeepers.blogspot.com

Recommended books:

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To reserve the club's oxalic acid vaporizer, go to this link to get started.